On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 21:18, Thomas Petazzoni wrote: > Why don't we consider the x86-64 as beeing a 64-bits-only architecture
Because we want to run Netscape, commercial games, Frauhofer MP3 en/decoders, Oracle, and other binary-only i386 software.
If AMD had made a 64bit only CPU and devoted those extra transistors to cache it would have improved performance for 64bit code. After paying the performance penalty of a 32bit ISA it makes sense to take advantage of it.
IMVHO, there is an intermediate alternative: why not ...
... create a new x86-64 architecture
... tweak dpkg so that ${DEB_ARCH}=="x86-64" admits both i386 and x86-64 binaries;
Naturally, x86-64 ("native") would be preferred to i386 when available. If there is no x86-64 binary, use i386 instead; Sky is blue, life is good ...
so,
- We will have native, optimized, packages for x86-64, thus benefiting from the increased memory space addressing, extra integer size, Y2K38 compatibility ;) ...
- Since dpkg will allow installing binary packages from i386
- We can have an x86-64 Debian right now :D ( Opteron should be released tomorrow, IIRC )
- Autobuilders will have much less load -- they need not build everything *right now*
- We can have an smooth transition to 64 bits
Any comments, remarks, suggestions, etc. very much appreciated
Regards,
J.L.