Re: Concerns about AMD64 port
On Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 06:46:12PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> > Plus, Goswin, in the long-run *multiarch* is the path of wasted time.
> > If we are not going to want to waste our time, let us do a pure 64-bit
> > userland, since eventually people will go there anyway, and multiarch
> > will be deprecated on this platform.
>
> It will be years until 32 bit support will not be needed anymore. A
> lot of commercial or binary-only programs will allways need it.
Funny, I've been running my Alpha since 1997 with no need for 32-bit
support.
> There is more than Debian out there, we haven't yet taken over the
> world. It will be a long time till a substancial part of non-free and
> contrib will be ported to amd64. And it will be far longer until
> people stop using the i386 software they bought.
That is possibly true (you don't really know).
But what you are forgetting is that this is a Unix*. The traditional
way of installing software on Unix is from source. That is precisely
because of the many platforms, and there is no problem with supporting a
Unix on AMD64.
> When people have the choice of installing debian and play
> quake/doom/descent/civilization or install debian, setup a chroot
> manually and play quake/doom/descent/civilization after hours of
> fiddling around I think I know what they will choose.
That's wrong. It takes 10 minutes of fiddling. debootstrap, then copy
your /etc/resolv.conf, mount your proc, and your chroot is ready.
Why do you support providing no 64-bit support for people that want to
use *what's in Debian* in favor of adding 10 minutes to the life of
people that want to use what's not?
-- John
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