On Jun 24, 2011, at 4:17 PM, Dmitry Kozhinov wrote: > > So I guess it would be fair to say that the best OS is the one that > > support both at the same time > > Yes, and that's OSol and OI do.
Processes running under 32-bit Solaris can only be 32-bit. Processes running under 64-bit Solaris can be either. However, drivers, etc must match the kernel. And for all practical purposes, debugging a process (or the kernel) is a whole lot easier when done by a process with the same bitness as what it's debugging. For instance, it may not be feasible for a 32-bit process to control a 64-bit process (although the reverse may be possible, if more difficult than if they were the same). So the loss of a 32-bit kernel option limits mainly the hardware you can run on (CPU, but maybe also old drivers that were never ported to 64-bit). Other OS's may have somewhat different rules. OS X for instance can run 64-bit processes on a 32-bit kernel given 64-bit capable hardware. I expect that very few OS's would go to the trouble of supporting 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit OS, for example; not perhaps 100% impossible depending on the driver-to-OS interface, but certainly extra complexity where it's most dangerous. _______________________________________________ OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list OpenIndiana-discuss@openindiana.org http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss