[Pc_Support] Now 64-bit ... no real issues except Firefox x86-64 (replaced with Firefox i386)

[Bryan J. Smith]

I'm now running Linux/x86-64 (Fedora Core 3).

I've only run into 1 issue so far and that is the fact that Red Hat is
shipping Firefox x86-64 instead of Firefox i386.
Why they have done this in Fedora Core 3 is beyond me, because in Fedora
Core 1/2, they shipped the i386 version for plug-in compatibility.
Even more ironic is that they _do_ ship HelixPlayer i386 in FC3 x86-64
(is there a HelixPlayer x86-64?), so why didn't they pair that with
Firefox i386, I have no idea.

Anyhoo, sure enough, _no_ plug-ins would work in Firefox x86-64.

So I uninstalled it, temporarily tapped the i386 YUM repository, and got
Firefox i386 (as well as Mozplugger i386).

Now just about _all_ plug-ins work, including:  
- HelixPlayer (copy .so/.xpt).
- Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 (copy nppdf.so)
- FlashPlayer (symlink .so)
- Java 1.5 (symlink .so)

Outside of the Firefox issue, Fedora Core 3 seems to ship with the small
subset of i386 libraries that are able to run a majority of programs --
even games like Doom3.  I'm installing the UT2004 Linux/x86-64 version
from the "Editor's Choice Edition" as we speak.

The only thing that I couldn't get to work on FC3 x86-64 is RealPlayer
10.  It wasn't just a Firefox issue either.  I can load it or launch it
as a plug-in in Firefox, but the problem is that once it loads a .ram,
something crashes due to missing libraries it was built against.
Everything I've read has said RealPlayer is not "64-bit clean" (which
probably is the same issue with HelixPlayer too, hence why the i386
binary is included).

Overall, I'm very impressed.  The system is pretty much entirely x86-64
native, and the number of i386 libraries is minimal.  Quite the opposite
of XP 64-bit Edition from when I played with it a few months back.  I'm
not going to even bother installing that.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org 
---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Community software is all about choice, choice of technology.
Unfortunately, too many Linux advocates port over the so-called
"choice" from the commercial software world, brand name marketing.
The result is false assumptions, failure to focus on the real
technical similarities, but loyalty to blind vendor alignments.