Re: Debian for x86-64 (AMD Opteron)
At 01:18 22/04/2003 +1000, you wrote:
On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 21:18, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Why don't we consider the x86-64 as beeing a 64-bits-only architecture
Because we want to run Netscape, commercial games, Frauhofer MP3 en/decoders,
Oracle, and other binary-only i386 software.
If AMD had made a 64bit only CPU and devoted those extra transistors to cache
it would have improved performance for 64bit code. After paying the
performance penalty of a 32bit ISA it makes sense to take advantage of it.
IMVHO, there is an intermediate alternative: why not ...
... create a new x86-64 architecture
... tweak dpkg so that ${DEB_ARCH}=="x86-64" admits both i386 and x86-64
binaries;
Naturally, x86-64 ("native") would be preferred to i386 when available. If
there is no x86-64 binary, use i386 instead; Sky is blue, life is good ...
so,
- We will have native, optimized, packages for x86-64, thus benefiting
from the increased memory space addressing, extra integer size, Y2K38
compatibility ;) ...
- Since dpkg will allow installing binary packages from i386
- We can have an x86-64 Debian right now :D ( Opteron should be
released tomorrow, IIRC )
- Autobuilders will have much less load -- they need not build
everything *right now*
- We can have an smooth transition to 64 bits
Any comments, remarks, suggestions, etc. very much appreciated
Regards,
J.L.
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