Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 14, 2006 07:55 AM
"But no one survives on distro-supplied packages alone. All of us download and install third-party applications. [...] how many locally-installed packages do you acquire over the course of one distro release cycle?"
Hmmmm....I've done pretty well with Debian for the last 3 years. I don't think I've needed to go outside the main repository more than a couple of times, and every time I have done so, I've pretty much had to build from source anyway. So, no change there then.
"no matter how good free software is, there is still the occasional lapse in judgment (assuming pointer sizes, for instance) that you will be the first to catch."
OK, that is somewhat valid. But I've found that that sort of thing is generally only from immature software that has other bugs in it anyway. *shrug*
"Of course, one of the primary advantages of 64-bit Linux is the ability to load your system up with north of four gigabytes of RAM"
Ummm...you can do that with x86-32 - that's what PAE[0] is for. Yes, individual apps can only access 4GB each (and only 3GB userspace), but you can fit more than one of them, fully loaded, in physical memory at once on such a system.
"That said, it really irritates me when I hear someone criticize "Linux" for those shortcomings. Yes, there is no Flash plugin for 64-bit Linux, and yes, Wine is a nightmare. But don't fall into the trap of blaming this misfortune on Linux. It is the individual fault of the various ISVs, not the not of the kernel developers and not of the distros."
Tell it brother! I think that people should be barred from saying they "support Linux" when they mean Linux/x86-32. Linux is well-supported on at least 11 architectures[1], and runs on a hell of a lot more than that. IMO, if your software does not run on at least half of the well-supported arches, it does not count as "supporting Linux". If you support "Linux/x86-32" - fine. But *say so*.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 14, 2006 07:55 AMHmmmm....I've done pretty well with Debian for the last 3 years. I don't think I've needed to go outside the main repository more than a couple of times, and every time I have done so, I've pretty much had to build from source anyway. So, no change there then.
"no matter how good free software is, there is still the occasional lapse in judgment (assuming pointer sizes, for instance) that you will be the first to catch."
OK, that is somewhat valid. But I've found that that sort of thing is generally only from immature software that has other bugs in it anyway. *shrug*
"Of course, one of the primary advantages of 64-bit Linux is the ability to load your system up with north of four gigabytes of RAM"
Ummm...you can do that with x86-32 - that's what PAE[0] is for. Yes, individual apps can only access 4GB each (and only 3GB userspace), but you can fit more than one of them, fully loaded, in physical memory at once on such a system.
"That said, it really irritates me when I hear someone criticize "Linux" for those shortcomings. Yes, there is no Flash plugin for 64-bit Linux, and yes, Wine is a nightmare. But don't fall into the trap of blaming this misfortune on Linux. It is the individual fault of the various ISVs, not the not of the kernel developers and not of the distros."
Tell it brother! I think that people should be barred from saying they "support Linux" when they mean Linux/x86-32. Linux is well-supported on at least 11 architectures[1], and runs on a hell of a lot more than that. IMO, if your software does not run on at least half of the well-supported arches, it does not count as "supporting Linux". If you support "Linux/x86-32" - fine. But *say so*.
[0] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension" title="wikipedia.org">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Ext<nobr>e<wbr></nobr> nsion</a wikipedia.org>
[1] <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/" title="debian.org">http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/</a debian.org>
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