Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?
On Donnerstag 04 März 2010, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: On 03/04/2010 08:44 AM, Graham Murray wrote: Volker Armin Hemmannvolkerar...@googlemail.com writes: no, it is not safe to have a 64bit only system. Just choose the multilib profile and start installing. If something needs the 32bit emul libs, it will pull the stuff in. There is nothing you need to care about. What is unsafe about a 64bit only system? Surely if it were unsafe then Gentoo would not offer no-multilib profiles? I have recently built 2 systems using a no-multilib profile and have not found any problems, and expect to start building a third one today. You didn't understand the question Volker was replying to. The question was not about safe as in security, but rather safe as in I can rest assured that a no-multilib system can run every software I could install, which is clearly not the case since some applications need 32-bit support. exactly. As Alan explained, there might be a point where you need to run a 32bit app. Maybe some legacy game (Civilization Call To Power comes to mind) or some new- but-the-vendor-sucks software. Without multilib you can either choose not to use that software (which isn't a choice if you really need it) or you can reinstall everything. And all that for a couple of megabytes on a tens, maybe hundreds of gigabytes harddisk. du -h /usr/lib32 362M/usr/lib32 but: rootfs 57G 23G 34G 41% / yeah, shocking. Almost a 114th of the harddisk used for multilib stuff ;)
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?
On 4 Mar 2010, at 07:19, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: On 03/04/2010 08:44 AM, Graham Murray wrote: Volker Armin Hemmannvolkerar...@googlemail.com writes: no, it is not safe to have a 64bit only system. Just choose the multilib profile and start installing. If something needs the 32bit emul libs, it will pull the stuff in. There is nothing you need to care about. What is unsafe about a 64bit only system? Surely if it were unsafe then Gentoo would not offer no-multilib profiles? I have recently built 2 systems using a no-multilib profile and have not found any problems, and expect to start building a third one today. You didn't understand the question Volker was replying to. The question was not about safe as in security, but rather safe as in I can rest assured that a no-multilib system can run every software I could install, which is clearly not the case since some applications need 32-bit support. I could imagine that web-browsers might need 32-bit support in order to play Flash, but can you suggest other applications which might? This is a headless server, and I was kinda reassured by Alan's response (Wed, 3 Mar 2010 22:04:17 +0200) [1] that seemed to assure me that a statically linked 32-bit binary would work fine if I selected the no-multilib profile. I'd be really quite happy if I knew that this decision was revocable - if I could choose no-multilib now and change my mind using eselect later. Presumably I can choose to keep these 32-bit libs for the moment blow them away if I find I don't need them - this lib32 is, after all, in the stage3-amd64-*tar.bz2, so what is the point in offering me no-multilib if I can't do that? Stroller. [1] http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user/msg_64a30b77742cf5846705952e6129367d.xml http://tinyurl.com/ykvx5co
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?
On Donnerstag 04 März 2010, Stroller wrote: I'd be really quite happy if I knew that this decision was revocable - if I could choose no-multilib now and change my mind using eselect later. Presumably I can choose to keep these 32-bit libs for the moment blow them away if I find I don't need them - this lib32 is, after all, in the stage3-amd64-*tar.bz2, so what is the point in offering me no-multilib if I can't do that? you can not change on the fly. going from no-multilib to multilib means re- installation. no-multilib is meant for the very brave or people who know exactly that they never need 32bit apps on that box. Your manpages will take up more space then those few 32bit emul libs that might or not be installed. So there is no downside going multilib.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?
On 4 March 2010 09:15, Volker Armin Hemmann volkerar...@googlemail.com wrote: On Donnerstag 04 März 2010, Stroller wrote: I'd be really quite happy if I knew that this decision was revocable - if I could choose no-multilib now and change my mind using eselect later. Presumably I can choose to keep these 32-bit libs for the moment blow them away if I find I don't need them - this lib32 is, after all, in the stage3-amd64-*tar.bz2, so what is the point in offering me no-multilib if I can't do that? you can not change on the fly. going from no-multilib to multilib means re- installation. no-multilib is meant for the very brave or people who know exactly that they never need 32bit apps on that box. Your manpages will take up more space then those few 32bit emul libs that might or not be installed. So there is no downside going multilib. Yep, that was my decision too for a desktop installation. If I were building a slim server and checked that all apps required are available as 64bit I might have chosen a no-multilib profile. For anything else I probably wouldn't. -- Regards, Mick
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Advice for 64-bit n00b?
On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 08:56:34AM +, Stroller wrote I could imagine that web-browsers might need 32-bit support in order to play Flash If you're brave, there's an alpha (as in pre-beta, not the CPU) 64-bit plugin for linux at... http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html but can you suggest other applications which might? Realplayer, or any other proprietary plugin. -- Walter Dnes waltd...@waltdnes.org
