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Problemas with 64 bit cleanliness (was: Re: Intel Core2Duo (T7400))



On Nov 07 2007, Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 13:35 -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > A few programs still don't compile or work on 64bit systems (not
> > amd64
> 
> Any real-world examples?

Yes, one package that I maintain does not work with 64 bit systems
(hfsprogs).  This is code taken directly from Apple's Darwin system and
has a few silly programming mistakes (like using index -1 in a C array).

For luck, fsck.hfsplus works on 32 bit systems, but that just what I
said: luck.

BTW, fixing it would be a major undertaking... :-(

> The only which I remember rumors are "grub". But being a bootloader,
> that probably doesn't hurt much.

Does anybody know how about the status of grub 2? I would like to use
just one booloader for the main architectures that I live with (ppc,
amd64, i386).

> Fact is that I run pure 64bit Linux since months on my home desktop
> (though I'm not the typical desktop user;-).

I consider myself a pretty typical Desktop user (working on papers for
my studies and preparing classes, surfing the web, reading mail etc) and
I'm using a pure 64 bit Linux system. :-)

Of course, one of the reasons I like alternative ports (like PowerPC
also) is that it is a very good test for pureness of Free Software: it's
also got something to do with me liking Free Software to the point of
maintaining the Virtual RMS (package: vrms). :-)

> > I guess you could say that the fact the programs are slightly bigger
> > (since all pointers become 8 bytes rather than 4) is a disadvantage,
> > but on the other hand a lot of code runs slightly faster with 64bit,
> > with a
> 
> Yes, x86_64 has more registers than i386.

Yes, this is a good thing for compilers, as less parameters are passed
by memory and less temporary expressions are spilled to memory. I wish
that x86-64 had more of them...

> Some browsers (konqueror, firefox as far as I've been told) allow to run
> 32bit plugins from the 64bit version.

Didn't know that.

> Since the flash-plugin and others is not really important for me, I
> don't really care.

Same thing here: I even block other things with privoxy. :-)

> > problems since many are 32bit windows code only.  Some people just run
> > the few problem programs in a 32bit chroot and deal with it that way,
> 
> Or install 32bit libs and run a 32bit browser/application on the x86_64
> installation.

While this can be done, it would "taint" the pure 64 bit installation...


Regards,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org



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