[Tfug] {HTML} 64Bit vs. 32Bit Debian

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 07:53:37AM -0700, Charles R Kiss wrote:
>   I'm concerned that I'll have to work really, really hard to get
>   packages to build on Debian 64bit kernel.  Is it worth my time?
>   Does anyone use a 64bit processor with Debian?  I read some of their
>   site wrt chroot; I'd just like to know what others are doing in this
>   regard.  The machines are cheap, but not enough to have one sitting
>   around; I like to play a little, but my time is fairly limited.  Maybe
>   I should just wait.
>   Thanks,
>   Charles

I can confirm pretty much everything Jeremy Rogers said about 64bit Debian.
It works really well and there are almost no packages available for 32bit that
are not available for 64bit.

As Jeremy mentioned, browser plugins can be a pain.  On my Ubuntu machine, it
comes with the Icedtea OpenJDK plugin and I've had good experience with it
(even with NOAA sites).

I also used a 32bit chroot environment at one point.  I started using 64bit
Debian before it became an officially supported port.  At the time I needed
the chroot because there was no native version of OpenOffice and because many
of the Windows codecs (for use with xine/mplayer) were 32bit only.

OpenOffice works fine now in 64bit.  There are 64bit Windows codecs available
now, too, though I find I'm needing them less and less as time goes on thanks
to ever maturing free codecs or free implementations.

I no longer have the chroot, but the only reason I can think where I might
need one would be if I wanted to generate 32bit Debian packages on my 64bit
system.

However, many of the choot solutions are, I think, better handled by virtual
machines, not least because they are more portable.  I use a WinXP virtual
machine to run the Win-only Palm OS Simulator and I use a 32bit Debian virtual
machine to run POSE (Palm OS Emulator) which refuses to run in 64bit land even
with compatibility libraries available.  Plus it's far to old to compile
properly in 64bit land.  Also with the Debian VM, I can SSH into it and run
POSE so aside from a small drop in speed, it's really a moot point now.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, UMass Amherst student
                        Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
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