-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Knecht wrote: > Hi, > I lurk on the LKML, say hi once in awhile, ask a question once in > awhile, and try to read at least the interesting to a non-programmer > posts. I was curious about this one that came up today. Seems like > this is a natural for Gentoo. > > I have a Gentoo 64-bit setup but have had lots of troubles over the > years (far less now though) with web media and other things that need > to be more Windows compatible. (I do audio work with my Gentoo boxes - > interface to studios and a few bands, etc) I've found that my 32-bit > Gentoo installations have been more compatible than 64-bit. Outside > stuff like Java is better. In general when I have a problem I wonder > if it's because I'm running 64-bit. > > How would one go about building a 64-bit kernel on a 32-bit machine > with Gentoo? I presume that's mostly just how I configure the kernel, > along with maybe some cross-compile options? Are there any projects > going on in this area where I might become a test case? Wiki? Docs? > > Do others see value - getting 64-bit memory management, new CPU > flags, etc., but keeping the apps 32-bit for compatibility? > > Take care, > Mark
Personally, I am using a 64-bit kernel with a 32-bit userland. My setup is a bit more complicated than the usual, because I have a x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc that will build 32-bit as well as 64-bit binaries. The simpler version of what I use is: # emerge crossdev # crossdev -t x86_64-pc-linux-gnu Then, you can use something like the following to actually build a 64-bit kernel (personally, I always use out-of-tree builds, and create a GNUmakefile that calls the Makefile in the current directory with all the options I want): (in the kernel build directory) # make -C /path/to/sources O=`pwd` ARCH=x86 \ CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu- \ menuconfig I have found that just about everything works perfectly in my 64-bit kernel with 32-bit userland, *except* VirtualBox, which I have to run the 64-bit version of from a chroot. I also personally handle all external kernel modules, and add them to package.provided when necessary, so portage doesn't have to think about them. PS: I was going to outline all the patches, etc. that I needed for a multilib gcc/glibc, but then realized that you probably didn't need that much detail. - -- ABCD -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkovRjcACgkQOypDUo0oQOrMdgCfXRiLDyg1IH8d9fA+WodUjWO8 PRMAnihXrPy3VZBYhRF7LzWVivKl2eIb =dD3A -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----