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Re: When will amd64 be allowed in sid?



Hello Chris!

Thu, 6 May 2004 04:25:30 -0500, you wrote: 

 > Most code that can't be immediately recompiled for amd64 is commercial
 > binary only software which also in most cases is statically compiled, so
 > in general you only need a 32bit libc (afaik). For the open source
 > programs that aren't 64bit clean they can be fixed as they are found,
 > hopefully without too many problems. Most open source apps are already
 > 64bit clean since they are in Debian already on alpha/ia64/etc... IMHO
 > full biarch is of little real use on AMD64, but could be quite useful
 > on other archs such as mips/powerpc/sparc.

Biarch can be  usefull because is many cases  the drawbacks of 64-bits
(bigger  datatypes,  including  bigger  pointers,  which  lead  to  an
increase of memory bandwidth  and cache-line usage) are more important
that the gains. I don't know exactly for AMD64, but for Sparc 64, many
applications run faster when compiled in 32-bits.

But that's  not a reason to delay  AMD64 from being in  Sid IMHO. It's
just a reason for why biarch would be good on the long run.

-- 
Gael Le Mignot "Kilobug" - kilobug@nerim.net - http://kilobug.free.fr
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