[Pc_Support] AMD64 versus x86

[Bryan J. Smith]

Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com> wrote:
> I've run the AMD64 Debian port, which actually does have
> _official_ security updates, even though the release isn't
> official.  I had it working fine on a dual Opteron system.

I wish Red Hat would emulate the Debian chroot approach in
one area, Firefox.  Red Hat really needs to setup a chroot
tree so you can run an i386 Firefox with i386 plug-ins,
especially where some programs (not just libraries, which are
segmented into /lib from /lib64), need to be i386 as well as
x86-64 (for non-Firefox usage).

Such examples include multimedia -- e.g., maintaining MPlayer
for i386 is _not_ fun on an x86-64 system with countless
support programs.  Also, Java is an issue because Sun _now_
provides an x86-64 release -- e.g., I want the i386 for
Firefox, but x86-64 for normal system operations, etc...

My "nail in the coffin" is that Red Hat ships the i386
version of HelixPlayer for plug-in compatibility, so it
should match it with Firefox.  So far, Red Hat ships both
i386 and x86-64 versions of Mozilla, but only the x86-64 of
Firefox -- I think they have it backwards personally.  ;->


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Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
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