[email protected] writes:
> On Tue, 17 Mar 2009, Brad Knowles wrote:
>> on 3/16/09 11:20 PM, [email protected] said:
>>
>>>> It depends on what you're doing. Some applications have not yet been
>>>> ported to 64-bit, and may not run correctly on a machine that has a
>>>> 64-bit kernel. Other applications may run better in 64-bit mode. You
>>>> need to know your specific application.
>>>
>>> do you have any specific examples? the last usespace program that I
>>> ran into with this sort of bug was the ipchains binary, and that was
>>> fixed several years ago.
>>
>> I've heard of no end of problems with precompiled binaries provided
>> by vendors for things like Flash, Nvidia drivers, etc....
The binary video drivers are now as stable on 64-bit as the binary video
drivers ever are, which is to say that they are relatively reliable and
cause no more failures or corruptions than the 32-bit versions.
> using a 32 bit flash as a plugin to a 64 bit browser is an issue. that
> issue ended up getting resolved by people figuring out that you could
> use ndiswrapper to run flash (and several distros do this by default
> now).
You mean "nspluginwrapper"; ndiswrapper is a "Windows wireless NIC
driver" wrapper that runs inside the Linux kernel.
[...]
> there is a 64 bit flash in alpha status right now. I'm running it on
> my laptop and it crashes once in a while, taking the browser down with
> it.
The most recent nspluginwrapper versions include a "native" mode, where
they run the 64-bit flash plugin out-of-process, so a crash doesn't take
Firefox with it.
This is the model Opera have used for years and, for that, works
reliably.
That said, the 64-bit Flash requires a CPU with lahf_lm support since
their native code JIT engine generates the extended instructions without
regard to the actual capabilities of the CPU.
So, you know, not all that crash-hot yet, really, in terms of platform
support.
[...]
Overall, 64-bit Linux on the server seems fine, and on the desktop is a
PITA until you find the combination of features that happen to work
... and never upgrade again.
Maybe next year it will be ready to face the end user reliably.
Daniel
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