Re: Which processor mode?

[Matt Wilson <msw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 08:16:53PM -1000, Warren Togami wrote:
> 
> I am very excited about testing this technology preview on the two
> Opteron servers that we ordered this week.  My plan is to adapt K12LTSP
> server-side to work on AMD64 hardware.  I suspect it wouldn't take a lot
> of work depending on the state of RH's port to AMD64.

It should be quite simple.

> Most of the applications that LTSP users need already come in Red Hat
> Linux (mozilla, openoffice, gimp, etc.) and most other things can be
> recompiled.  I am hoping Java will be easy to recompile on AMD64.  

Unfortunately OpenOffice.org uses a component architecture called UNO
which requires glue code (C++ method invocation, exception
marshaling, etc.) which must be ported to each architecture/compiler
combination.  Work hasn't been done for AMD64 yet (that I know of.).
I have run OpenOffice.org in 32-bit compatibility mode on this release.

> Unfortunately LTSP users are very unhappy without Macromedia Flash
> plugin, which is 32bit and binary-only.  With the 32-bit shared
> libraries would Linux be able to run the 32-bit flash plugin from 64-bit
> compiled Mozilla, or would the browser need to be recompiled for i386?

No, you will need to use the 32-bit mozilla in order to use the 32-bit
plugin.

Cheers,

Matt
msw@xxxxxxxxxx
--
Matt Wilson
Manager, Base Operating Systems
Red Hat, Inc.