Re: Should we build i386 or i686 rpms?

From: James Wilkinson (james_at_westexe.demon.co.uk)
Date: 03/22/05

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    Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:51:39 +0000
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
    > Of course, when we move to AMD64, it is completely different story. For
    > that platform, there is benefit if we want to utilize 64-bit data types,
    > so we have almost all packages recompiled specifically for that
    > platform. Although, I would be much happier if Linux folks took
    > approach from Digital Unix for Alpha processors and/or the approach
    > OpenBSD folks have for 64 bit processors, and not the one from 64-bit
    > Solaris (where there's also that terrible mix of 32-bit and 64-bit
    > stuff). IMO, wanna run 64-bit, do it clean, don't mix and match.

    Great theory, and I understand one that Debian have followed. So don't
    blame "Linux folks" in general...

    Unfortunately, OpenOffice doesn't yet compile for x86_64 (as far as I
    know), and a lot of the third-party media players which rely on external
    codecs don't have 64 bit versions of the (usually closed) codecs.

    The Debian workaround for this is to have a separate 32 bit install, and
    use chroot to run 32 bit packages in the 32 bit install. It's arguable
    whether this is particularly "cleaner" than Fedora's approach.

    Incidentally, I understand that it isn't the 64 bit wide registers that
    are the big performance enhancement in AMD64: it's the extra registers.
    Most programs (at the moment) don't need 64 bits. But 64 bit mode makes
    binaries larger, which means you can get less code into a fixed-size
    cache, slightly slowing things down.

    On AMD64, the other benefits (especially the extra registers) outweigh
    this (so 64 bit mode is still faster). On RISC chips with a clean 32 bit
    mode, commercial Unix has often stuck to a 32 bit userland.

    James. 

    -- 
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                      |     -- "I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue", BBC Radio 4
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