* Goswin von Brederlow (brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de) wrote: > John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes: > > The only reason I can see for even bothering to support 32-bit > > applications at all is for binary-only proprietary software. And that > > is not such a concern; it takes all of about 10 minutes to set up a > > 32-bit chroot with debootstrap to run those things in. > > That implies you have a kernel with 32bit emulation compiled in. So > you are running a biarch system and not pure 64bit. Pfffft. A biarch kernel and a biarch *system* (as in the OS) are quite different things, and one is a hell of alot easier than the other. A 64bit-native amd64 port for Debian would work just fine in the situation he describes, with the biarch kernel. Is there *anything* that would have to be done differently to support a biarch kernel in Debian besides maybe modutils changes (havn't they already been done?) and other minor kernel-specific stuff, things that wouldn't have any problem on a 64bit-native Debian system? > > So it seems to me that the great benefit to many people of having a > > native 64-bit userland has been sacrificed for the questionable benefit > > of being able to run proprietary software without making a chroot. I am > > still a little shocked about that. > > Our big goal is to support A) pure 32bit i386, B) mixed 32/64 bit > i386/amd64 and C) pure 64bit amd64 userspace. > > For some crucial things likes libc6 it doesn't look like we can get > rid of the 32bit flavour though. But apart from a bit of bloat here > and there nothing stands in the way of a pure 64 bit amd64 > system (Except your time and willingness to port stuff). I'm not sure what you mean here. I don't think you'd need the libc6 32bit flavour on a pure 64bit-native amd64 system. If you're saying that for the biarch stuff that's being worked on then I could understand it, and doubt anyone would mind it being there. > > Can someone explain what is going on here? > > Its a transition. Its all a mess untill stuff is cleaned up, things > have been tried and decided upon. Decided upon? Hardly. Certainly not by all the stakeholders involved. Stephen
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