On 02/07/2017 10:26 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > I think eventually maintaining the dual library builds and the tool > chain and such starts to be a hassle, when things like web browsers and > graphics editing programs and such start to have reasons to want more > than 2 or 3GB of ram.
Not sure. At least on Debian, biarch doesn't involve too much work. I think people just default to 64 bit binaries because in most cases the possible performance advantage of 32-bit binaries isn't important but making everything 64 bit by default means you only have to install 32-bit libraries when you actually need them. > Of course the x32 architecture existing at all makes you think not > everyone is convinced it isn't worthwhile. I think the original motivation behind the port were actually mobile devices with x86 CPUs. But since Intel was never successful with x86 in mobile devices, people lost interest. We're still maintaining it in Debian in any case as it doesn't require much attention and some people still like to use it. Intel is actually still using x32 with the "autoilp32" feature in their compilers. With autoilp32, the compiler will generate 32-bit code when possible to improve performance. Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - [email protected] `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - [email protected] `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
