On 23/07/07, Darren Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Just a few extra notes on this topic... > Some things I learned about this issue in the last few days: > 1. If you want Adobe Flash, Skype, Google Earth or many other proprietary > programs to run then you need a 32-bit environment Any sensible 64 bit distro will come with the 32 bit libraries (and install them by default) side by side with the 64 bit libraries. I use Fedora and it does just that.
Makes me wonder why all the amd64 Debian documents keep talking about the need to have a chroot for 32 bit instead of just installing 32-bit libraries. Could they be just too lazy to provide full set of 32-bit packages for the amd64 arch? With the 32 bit libraries installed, 32 bit programs should run as
normal. I have Google Earth and it runs perfectly. I have proprietary games (Quake IV, Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, all 32 bit only) and they run just fine. I have Cedega (to run windows games (all 32 bit)) and it runs... adequately. I have not tried Skype.
Skype works for me under the 32-bit chroot, same also for Google Earth and Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox.
2. OpenOffice wasn't ported to amd64. My install of Open Office reports being the x86_64 architecture. I may be remembering things wrong, but I am sure that it has always been 64 bit.
According to this page http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Porting_to_x86-64_(AMD64,_EM64T)it's a relatively recent work Many linux users might hate me for saying this, but you might want to
consider keeping windows around for this vital transition period. I.E. buy the windows machine and install linux on it yourself for the dual boot. The transition would be much slower, but also a bit less painful.
Another option might be to keep Windows inside a virtual environment (vmware, xen, kvm, whatever). --Amos -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
