Hi,
I was just searching the web for some information on 32bit support in 64bit environment and was able to find couple pages about Debian and CentOS. However, I couldn't find any comparison between them. If anyone knows the differences (e.g. which one is easier to set up and maintain) or could point me out to some useful sites, please help. Or if you think there's no difference, please explain.
Regards,
Daniel
On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:05 AM, Daniel andrzeje@cs.utk.edu wrote:
I was just searching the web for some information on 32bit support in 64bit environment and was able to find couple pages about Debian and CentOS. However, I couldn't find any comparison between them. If anyone knows the differences (e.g. which one is easier to set up and maintain) or could point me out to some useful sites, please help. Or if you think there's no difference, please explain.
Hi,
I don't know how Debian does it. But this is how CentOS does it. Basically all libraries are available in 32 and 64 bit versions and the 64 bit kernel used als allows 32 bit code to be executed. So this means that when the correct libraries are installed any 32 bit application will just work. Now then there is the yum package management tool in CentOS. If you install a 32 bit application using yum, yum will see what 32 bit libraries are needed and install them together with the application.
So if you use the tools provided by CentOS there is nothing special that needs to be done. The system will sort it out itself.
Regards, Tim
On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:13 AM, Tim Verhoeven tim.verhoeven.be@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know how Debian does it. But this is how CentOS does it. Basically all libraries are available in 32 and 64 bit versions and
To complement this with experience with Debian - current Debian stable release (Etch) still requires you to install 32-bit environments in chroot and run applications in that chroot. A multitude of chroot tools makes this painless once it's setup (e.g. I use schroot). It's askward and backwards and atypical for Debian to be in such a position.
BUT - I heard that the next release (i.e. Lenny, which is advancing in good pace to be released on time this year) finally falls in line with the rest of the major distributions and supports 32-bit applications without having to build chroot environment for them. However - I haven't got around to test this (trying to stick with stable, and the schroot solution works for me) so I can't give details on how exactly it works with the installations tools (e.g. aptitude, apt-get etc).
Hope this helps,
--Amos
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Amos Shapira -
Daniel -
Tim Verhoeven