Fedora 9 32 or 64 Bit - Which One?

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Kevin J. Cummings <cummings <at> kjchome.homeip.net> writes:
>>> What issues?
>> Issues, hassles, basically the same.  The things that have to be worked 
>> around.
> 
> My question was: can you please list the actual issues, hassles or however you 
> want to call them? Because most of what you listed is either:
> * no hassle at all (like a single yum install line will solve your problem) or
> * not an issue with x86_64: you upgraded from FC6 to F9 at the same time as 
> your 32->64-bit migration. That's a big upgrade, skipping 2 releases even. So 
> saying "this worked better on my old FC6 i386" is completely irrelevant for the 
> question which started this thread, which is "should I go with F9 i386 or F9 
> x86_64?".

The OP asked for "any and all advice".  Please don't change the subject.

>>> This has nothing whatsoever to do with x86_64, it's exactly the same on F9 
>>> i386.
>> It wasn't when I first upgraded.  The first problem was that the API 
>> changed and i386 worked and x86_64 didn't.  Over time, ATI fixed that 
>> problem (took a couple of months), but not the Xorg version problem.
> 
> Fglrx just plain didn't work on F9, be it 32-bit or 64-bit. They now have a 
> beta out which should work, it's up at RPM Fusion for both i?86 and x86_64.

No, actually, there were 2 different problems.  The first was an x86_64 
only problem as a symbol was no longer exported by the x86_64 kernel 
that fglrx relied upon, but was still present in the i386 kernel.

The second problem was common to both i386 and x86_64.

Having 2 problems on x86_64 made it more difficult to diagnose and track 
down.

>>>> 2) Many firefox plugins require nspluginwrapper because there are no 
>>>> x86_64 versions for them (Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader).  Getting it to 
>>>> work correctly is straightforward and the Fedora Project Documentation 
>>>> is correct if you follow it.
>>> So what's the problem there?
>> Maybe not a problem, but a big hassle.  And, it didn't use to be that 
>> way on i386.
> 
> How is "yum install nspluginwrapper.i386" a hassle? It's one line!

Not for me, but just look at all of the question in this list alone for 
people asking why it doesn't work for them.

>>> But nspluginwrapper is used by default even on 32-bit installations for 
>>> security reasons (because running the plugin in a separate process allows 
>>> confining it with SELinux).
>> Again, it didn't use to be that way.  Its a hassle.
> 
> But that's a change in Fedora 9 (actually it was in Fedora 7 or 8 already, but 
> in any case it's like that in F9).

The OP was talking about a change from FC6 to F9, just like I had done.

>>> Or just don't use acroread at all, that's what Okular and Evince are for.
>> When you say "don't use X" and "X" is written by the people who defined 
>> it, you are basically saying that the standard definers don't know what 
>> they are doing....  Seems very strange.  None of the replacements ever 
>> work as well as the original.  At least for me.  Its a hassle.
> 
> The original is not Free Software, so of course it will cause more problems 
> than the replacements which are.

Actually, the original reader is available for free download.  Don't 
cloud the issue.

> And if you believe the best software is always made by the people who defined a 
> standard, stop using Firefox and use Amaya instead, it's from the W3C. :-D 
> (FYI, don't bother, it's essentially useless as a browser. It may arguably have 
> some use as a website editor, but even there there are better alternatives.)

PDF was designed (and released) by Adobe.  Its their reader that doesn't 
have an x86_64 release, and therefore is the problem causing us to have 
to use nspluginwrapper.  And the fact that you have to install *BOTH* 
versions of nspluginwrapper (.i386 and .x86_64) makes it even more 
confusing.

>>> Konqueror can even embed Okular as a KPart if that's important to you.
>> I don't use Konqueror.
> 
> Your loss. ;-)

B^)

>>>> 3) Sometimes sound gets screwed up in the browser (firefox).  Even when 
>>>> using gecko-mediaplayer.  Restarting the browser, or sometimes 
>>>> restarting the X session is necessary.
>>> I don't think this is related to 64-bit either.
>> Maybe not, but I never noticed it until I upgraded to x86_64.
> 
> But that doesn't mean it is relevant for the i386 vs. x86_64 discussion.

Back to what the OP wanted, "any and all advice".

>>>> 4) If you want to run vmware-server you might want to upgrade to the 
>>>> version 2.0 BETA which has an X86_64 RPM.  (the version 1 version is 
>>>> i386 only).  I had no trouble running the .i386 version of vmware-server 
>>>> with the appropriate compatibility libraries.  Now I'm running the 
>>>> x86_64 BETA and it runs my 32-bit virtual machine just fine.  You *MAY* 
>>>> need to find the latest version of vmware-anyanyupdate (or you may not) 
>>>> for vmware-server version 1.
>>> So where's the problem?
>> Hassle!  Please stop changing the intent of my words!
> 
> How's running the latest version of your software a hassle?

Lack of available x86_64 is a hassle in my book.  The latest copy is 
still a BETA (or was when I last downloaded it).  Not everyone *wants* 
to run BETA software.

>>> OK, this is one valid argument. But the addons most people actually use
>>> should be available for x86_64.
>> OK, so you're telling me I'm using the wrong addons?  B^)
> 
> ^^
> 
>>>> So can finding addons that support firefox 3.0 in some cases.
>>> This has nothing whatsoever to do with x86_64, it's exactly the same on F9 
>>> i386.
>> Maybe so, but its a hassle.
> 
> But that doesn't mean it is relevant for the i386 vs. x86_64 discussion.

Back to the OP's original request again....

>> The problem is not with alsa-plugins-pulseaudio, its with 
>> jack-audio-connection-kit, needed by wine-jack.
> 
> You don't need wine-jack to get sound in WINE. JACK is not the default sound 
> server in Fedora, PulseAudio is.

Because of the way I upgraded from FC6, I'm not running PulseAudio....
Perhaps that *my* problem.  I like to think that's Fedora's lack of 
proper upgrade path problem.

>>>> 7) FC6 used cubbi-suspend2 kernels in order to suspend and hiberate 
>>>> correctly.  I was unable to make the tuxonice kernels work for me on F9, 
>>>> but the stock kernel support works fine with F9.  (It may not be as fast 
>>>> as tuxonice, but it does suspend/hibernate and restore without any major 
>>>> problems.)
>>> This has nothing whatsoever to do with x86_64, it's exactly the same on F9 
>>> i386.
>> Maybe so, bu I ran into it after I upgraded to x86_64.
> 
> But that doesn't mean it is relevant for the i386 vs. x86_64 discussion. The 
> fact that you happened to upgrade from FC6 to F9 at the same time is completely 
> irrelevant here.

But, its what the OP wants to do....  So please explain why it is 
irrelevant?

>         Kevin Kofler

Do you just like to argue?  This is getting quite pointless now.  If you 
wish, you can have the last word.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)