[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On 18/07/12 00:14, Alecks Gates wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-) Sure, but 64-bit wine can run either a win32 or a win64 config, and you have to enable win64 with the win64 USE flag. I believe this makes the win64 config default and you have to set WINEARCH=win32 if you want only 32-bit. Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 18/07/12 00:14, Alecks Gates wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-) Sure, but 64-bit wine can run either a win32 or a win64 config, and you have to enable win64 with the win64 USE flag. I believe this makes the win64 config default and you have to set WINEARCH=win32 if you want only 32-bit. Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-) Not really surprising. There's an IsWow64Process() in the Windows API to allow processes to detect the nature of the environment they're running on, since sometimes that's something you need to know. :) -- :wq
[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On 19/07/12 16:03, Michael Mol wrote: On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-) Not really surprising. There's an IsWow64Process() in the Windows API to allow processes to detect the nature of the environment they're running on, since sometimes that's something you need to know. :) WOW64 relies on 32-bit libraries to do it's job though. It's well known that 32-bit code cannot link against 64-bit libraries. If building a 64-bit only version of Wine (since you cannot build any 32-bit code on non-multilib Gentoo), the question arises on how Wine is doing it.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:31:42 +0300 Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/07/12 16:03, Michael Mol wrote: On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-) Not really surprising. There's an IsWow64Process() in the Windows API to allow processes to detect the nature of the environment they're running on, since sometimes that's something you need to know. :) WOW64 relies on 32-bit libraries to do it's job though. It's well known that 32-bit code cannot link against 64-bit libraries. If building a 64-bit only version of Wine (since you cannot build any 32-bit code on non-multilib Gentoo), the question arises on how Wine is doing it. Stupid question incoming: What's the WOW in WOW64? The more I read it as World of Warcraft the more I see that it doesn't actually fit :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
Stupid question incoming: What's the WOW in WOW64? The more I read it as World of Warcraft the more I see that it doesn't actually fit :-) WOW = Windows-on-Windows
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:31:42 +0300 Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/07/12 16:03, Michael Mol wrote: On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-) Not really surprising. There's an IsWow64Process() in the Windows API to allow processes to detect the nature of the environment they're running on, since sometimes that's something you need to know. :) WOW64 relies on 32-bit libraries to do it's job though. It's well known that 32-bit code cannot link against 64-bit libraries. If building a 64-bit only version of Wine (since you cannot build any 32-bit code on non-multilib Gentoo), the question arises on how Wine is doing it. Stupid question incoming: What's the WOW in WOW64? The more I read it as World of Warcraft the more I see that it doesn't actually fit :-) WOW64 is Windows On Windows 64-bit. It's how 32-bit Windows applications run on 64-bit Windows. By and large, the way 32-bit and 64-bit applications and libraries can communicate with each other are very limited. 64-bit programs can't load 32-bit libraries, and vice versa. Some environment variables containing path information are switched out depending on if the program is 32-bit or 64-bit. Accesses to some registry paths are shunted to one place or another, depending on if the program is 32-bit or 64-bit. For system libraries, 64-bit windows provides both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of supported libraries, rather like multilib environments on Linux. In essence, if you get 64-bit Windows, you're getting two copies of Windows, a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version, and the kernel shunts 32-bit programs into the 32-bit version while maintaining a reasonably high degree of interoperability; it's not a complete sandbox. 32-bit and 64-bit processes can still communicate with each other. mmap()'d files still work the same way, as the filesystem paths don't change. Named objects such as pipes, events, mutexes...all of those are handled by the kernel, which has mapping code to allow 32-bit and 64-bit processes to independently gain handles on the same named objects. (Subject to security attributes and restrictions, of course.) But, yeah. That's Windows, on Windows 64-bit, or WOW64. (P.S. For the Horde!) -- :wq
[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On 19/07/12 17:06, Michael Mol wrote: For system libraries, 64-bit windows provides both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of supported libraries, rather like multilib environments on Linux. So how does Wine run 32-bit Windows programs on a non-multilib Gentoo? Doesn't it need 32-bit *.dll.so files?
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/07/12 17:06, Michael Mol wrote: For system libraries, 64-bit windows provides both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of supported libraries, rather like multilib environments on Linux. So how does Wine run 32-bit Windows programs on a non-multilib Gentoo? Doesn't it need 32-bit *.dll.so files? WINE is an attempt at a bug-for-bug implementation of the Windows API. I really don't know how it operates internally. It's something I've been meaning to get into; I missed out on playing The Old Republic with my wife. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:06:18 -0400 Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:31:42 +0300 Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 19/07/12 16:03, Michael Mol wrote: On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting that Wine aims to do the WOW64 thing. That's certainly news to me :-) Not really surprising. There's an IsWow64Process() in the Windows API to allow processes to detect the nature of the environment they're running on, since sometimes that's something you need to know. :) WOW64 relies on 32-bit libraries to do it's job though. It's well known that 32-bit code cannot link against 64-bit libraries. If building a 64-bit only version of Wine (since you cannot build any 32-bit code on non-multilib Gentoo), the question arises on how Wine is doing it. Stupid question incoming: What's the WOW in WOW64? The more I read it as World of Warcraft the more I see that it doesn't actually fit :-) WOW64 is Windows On Windows 64-bit. It's how 32-bit Windows applications run on 64-bit Windows. By and large, the way 32-bit and 64-bit applications and libraries can communicate with each other are very limited. 64-bit programs can't load 32-bit libraries, and vice versa. Some environment variables containing path information are switched out depending on if the program is 32-bit or 64-bit. Accesses to some registry paths are shunted to one place or another, depending on if the program is 32-bit or 64-bit. For system libraries, 64-bit windows provides both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of supported libraries, rather like multilib environments on Linux. In essence, if you get 64-bit Windows, you're getting two copies of Windows, a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version, and the kernel shunts 32-bit programs into the 32-bit version while maintaining a reasonably high degree of interoperability; it's not a complete sandbox. 32-bit and 64-bit processes can still communicate with each other. mmap()'d files still work the same way, as the filesystem paths don't change. Named objects such as pipes, events, mutexes...all of those are handled by the kernel, which has mapping code to allow 32-bit and 64-bit processes to independently gain handles on the same named objects. (Subject to security attributes and restrictions, of course.) But, yeah. That's Windows, on Windows 64-bit, or WOW64. thanks, that makes sense (P.S. For the Horde!) :-) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On 17/07/12 05:22, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote: So the same old query again I guess. What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit processor? I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong. So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit for me. Since your CPU is 64-bit, use that. You will find reports out there about how 64-bit consumes more RAM. The effect however is very small. Also, if you later get more RAM, you won't have to switch archs. DDR3 is very cheap, about 5 bucks ($ or €) per GB right now.
[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On 17/07/12 19:43, Alecks Gates wrote: On Jul 17, 2012 11:32 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com mailto:volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: *snip* The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years. -- #163933 I use wine daily on 64 bit with no problems. 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 17/07/12 19:43, Alecks Gates wrote: On Jul 17, 2012 11:32 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com mailto:volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: *snip* The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years. -- #163933 I use wine daily on 64 bit with no problems. 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-) Sure, but 64-bit wine can run either a win32 or a win64 config, and you have to enable win64 with the win64 USE flag. I believe this makes the win64 config default and you have to set WINEARCH=win32 if you want only 32-bit. According to the winehq docs[1] the WINEARCH environment variable Specifies the Windows architecture to support. It can be set either to win32 (support only 32-bit applications), or to win64 (support both 64-bit applications and 32-bit ones in WoW64 mode). The architecture supported by a given Wine prefix is set at prefix creation time and cannot be changed afterwards. When running with an existing prefix, Wine will refuse to start if WINEARCH doesn't match the prefix architecture. It is meant to be able to run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications, but I think it's a bit buggy -- I've had some trouble installing microsoft visual c++ runtimes due to running a win64 config, but I could have been doing it wrong. [1] http://www.winehq.org/docs/wineusr-guide/x258
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 17/07/12 19:43, Alecks Gates wrote: On Jul 17, 2012 11:32 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com mailto:volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: *snip* The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years. -- #163933 I use wine daily on 64 bit with no problems. 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-) Wine supports a WoW64 setup, where you build both 32-bit and 64-bit wine, and 32- and 64-bit binaries are interoperable. I just took a brief look at the gentoo ebuild and it appears to enable this if you have both win32 and win64 USE flags set. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't say if or how it really works. :)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Jul 18, 2012 2:52 AM, Paul Hartman paul.hartman+gen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Nikos Chantziaras rea...@gmail.com wrote: On 17/07/12 19:43, Alecks Gates wrote: On Jul 17, 2012 11:32 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com mailto:volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: *snip* The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years. -- #163933 I use wine daily on 64 bit with no problems. 64-bit Wine cannot run 32-bit Windows applications. You need a 32-bit Wine for that. And since in 99.9% of Windows software is 32-bit... well, you get the point :-) Wine supports a WoW64 setup, where you build both 32-bit and 64-bit wine, and 32- and 64-bit binaries are interoperable. I just took a brief look at the gentoo ebuild and it appears to enable this if you have both win32 and win64 USE flags set. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't say if or how it really works. :) Good discussion, guys. I'll continue with 64bit :)
[gentoo-user] Re: 32bit or 64bit
On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 07:52:08 +0530 Nilesh Govindrajan cont...@nileshgr.com wrote: So the same old query again I guess. What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit processor? I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong. So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit for me. I'd go with 64-bit mostly because it's my impression more people (both devs and users) are using it now than 32-bit, so ebuilds/packages get more testing under 64-bit. But you don't say why you believe 64-bit shouldn't be seriously considered for a machine with 4 GiB RAM.