Re: [gentoo-user] [bit OT] 32 vs. 64 bits

[Albert Hopkins]

On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 14:59 +0100, pat wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've bought a new laptop with Core 2 Duo processor which is 64 bit. My
> question is if applications (see below) compiled and running over 64 bits are
> stable enough or if I should compile for 32 bits.
>
> The applications are:
> - Seamoneky/Firefox
> - Java
> - Flash
> - Audacious
> - mplayer
> - VirtualBox/VMware
> - Qemu
> - Kerberos/OpenLDAP/OpenSSH (for these I think they are stable)
> - X.org/fluxbox
> - system suspending

With very very few exceptions, stability shouldn't be much of an issue
for you.  It's pretty much the same source code base. What you should be
more concerned about is application availability, especially WRT:

      * if the application is closed-source is there a 64-bit version
      * have the Gentoo maintainers marked it (yet) for amd64 (stable).
        Gentoo is (or at least used to be) a bit slower at marking
        things amd64 just because there are (were) fewer testers.  I
        think this is pretty much a non-issue nowadays.
      * if it has code optimized in assembler is there optimized
        x64/compabile assembler.

We (well, I) still use the closed-source (well, binary) versions of
java.  IBM's Java at least has a 64-bit port.

Adobe just released a Linux x64 port of Flash (in Alpha).  From my
experience it's just as stable (or rather unstable) as the x86 version.

win32codecs will not work unless it's used by a 32-bit exe (You can run
32-bit apps on x64).

System suspending if largely kernel.

Anyway probably more than you wanted to know, but I don't think
stability is ever really a factor.  Linux has supported 64-bit
processors for at least 15 years (I think).  Usually the only issue
(just like running Linux on *any* non-x86 architecture) is the
availability of proprietary apps.

-a