<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 10:08 PM, Adam Tauno Williams <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:adamtaunowilliams@gmail.com">adamtaunowilliams@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Yes, you can dual-boot 64bit and 32bit OSs. No problem.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
<br>
> If the hardware is x86_64 then I would stick with a matching OS.<br>
> x86 has jumped the shark.<br>
<br>
</div>What does this statement even mean? </blockquote><div><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hein">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hein</a><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
x86 is the computing platform for<br>
the vast majority of users on the planet. Every package is available in<br>
x86 (and may nor may not be available for others, very frequently no).<br>
x86_64 is not a guaranteed performance improvement and can even be<br>
slower for many applications; while it provides a larger address space,<br>
more registers and some improved op-codes it also increased memory<br>
requirements and basically doubles the required throughput to perform a<br>
given operation. </blockquote><div><br>If someone wants to run 32bit on a 64bit platform, that's fine. Blessed. <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
It is a complete waste of time on the desktop unless<br>
you are using some specialize application that works with a huge data<br>
set (certainly not spreadsheets, e-mail, browsing, or word processing).</blockquote><div> <br>If someone wants to buy a multicore machine and turn off the extra cores, that's fine. Halo.<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> Most distros are releasing x86 versions to keep the<br>
> older hardware viable.<br>
<br>
</div>And will for a very long time into the future.</blockquote><div><br>The software follows the hardware. The desktop product manufacturers have clearly<br>gone 64bit and as a commodity it's cheaper to get the stuff that's plentiful and 64bit<br>
platforms are cheaper as a whole. Even the online liquidators have little 32bit stuff<br>and have been selling overstock/outdated 64bit platforms for a couple years now.<br>Right now the move is to multicore systems everywhere and in everything.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> Right now every software package has to be built for both arch.<br>
<br>
</div>Or they just build for x86 since that serves 98% of the user base.</blockquote><div><br>If you still use a Pentium platform then you have to embrace something like Puppy Linux<br>or Damn Small because i386 have been abandoned by the big distros. Most require<br>
an i586 or better an most cell phones have more proc anyway.<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> You can build x86 and x86_64 packages with a 64bit system, but using<br>
> just x86 would limit that ability.<br>
> I use <a href="http://www.foresightlinux.org/" target="_blank">http://www.foresightlinux.org/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">_______________________________________________<br>
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<a href="http://shinobu.grlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grlug" target="_blank">http://shinobu.grlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/grlug</a></div></div></blockquote><div> </div></div><br>It's really just a matter of timing, production, economies of scale, pricing, availability and whatnot.<br>
We might as well be talking about the move from 16bit to 32bit.<br>It's not a religion. Some people have moved on to x86_64 others have not.<br><br>
If someone wants to buy a C128 for sale it's got 8bits at it's finest. It comes with<br>
a 128k version of GEOS and even if you run in 64k mode you still get to go to heaven. Wings.<br>
<br><br><br></div>