2007/1/17, Alan Lord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Hi all,
I am an addicted LFS builder of many years and have a 64bit AMD PC
currently running 'another' OS!
I had a look on the CLFS web site (and the FAQ) but couldn't find a
simple answer to this one...
If I want to build a 64bit Linux base which will be happy running most
of the main desktop (inc. OOo) and some server apps (LAMP/SVN/SSH)
should I build a pure 64bit or a multilib CLFS system?
I would guess that multilib offers greater compatability with older/less
active apps but with no 64bit experience I am unsure of the level of
support now for the 64bit architecture. It has been around for a few
years now so perhaps it is fine???
Thanks in advance,
Al
PS - Perhaps this could be a question for your FAQ ;-)
Well, personally, I suspect that you'd be disappointed with a pure
64-bit system. You can do MOST things with pure 64-bit, but there are
various things you can't. If you were to install a 64-bit version of
a Linux distribution, it might give you some clue. For example, I
know that OpenSUSE's installation system makes it clear which versions
of packages are installed, so you can see which ones are installed as
both 32 and 64-bit and which are installed as 64-bit only. Of course,
they'll probably install more as 32-bit than is strictly speaking
necessary, but it may help to have a look.
Personally, I think that the number one reason to go with multilib is
Wine. Since Wine is going to be running 32-bit binaries, it needs all
of the appropriate 32-bit libraries. Other programs that would need
32-bit libraries are non-OSS stuff like RealPlayer or Adobe/Macromedia
Flash Player. Basically anything that you can't build yourself is
going to be a 32-bit binary and will thus need 32-bit support.
Of course, you can choose not to use Wine, or RealPlayer, or anything
that uses non-OSS code. At that point, you're generally okay with
pure 64-bit. However, some packages don't yet work properly in 64-bit
land. I don't know if it's been fixed, but it has been reported to
this list that the Gimp doesn't work properly in 64-bit mode - some
problem having to do with 32-bit brushes. However, OpenSUSE (and
probably the other 64-bit distros as well) runs a 64-bit verion of the
Gimp, so even if the main Gimp tree hasn't fixed it yet, perhaps the
fixed src can be taken from a distro's rpm or deb file.
In any case, you basically need to decide what you want your system to
be able to do. If some of those things require 32-bit support, then
you're going to need a multilib system. Once you've decided which
packages are going to need to be multilib (or just 32-bit), you can
determine which other packages they need as dependencies and thus must
be multilib.
Perhaps a list of programs that need multilib support would be nice,
but the ones that I'm aware of at the moment are Wine, RealPlayer,
Macromedia FlashPlayer, Adobe's Acroread, and any other non-OSS
program that you might try and run (I'm unaware of any being
distributed as 64-bit binaries). Unless you know of a specific
instance of a program not functioning in 64-bit mode (like the Gimp),
I wouldn't worry much about that. Even if you do find one, there's
probably a good chance that you can just get the source from a
distribution's files.
The two things that I'm not clear on, are whether or not 32-bit
mozilla plugins (like Java JDK) will function in 64-bit browsers and
whether or not media codecs will work in 64-bit media players. I
haven't gotten far enough with my CBLFS system to say yay or nay. I
have heard that they don't work in 64-bit land, but my OpenSUSE
installation is able to do both of those in 64-bit land
somehow-or-other.
Well, hopefully that was fairly insightful without being too
dreadfully long. Welcome to CLFS!
- Jonathan Davis
_______________________________________________
Clfs-support mailing list
Clfs-support@lists.cross-lfs.org
http://lists.cross-lfs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/clfs-support
