Promoting i386 version over x86_64?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 12/08/2009 06:41 PM, drago01 wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Rallias UberNerd
> <robinstar1574 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:39:16 -0600, Kevin Kofler<kevin.kofler at chello.at>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Bill McGonigle wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "Are you installing Fedora on the computer you're using now?" [YES]  [NO]
>>>>   YES ->  is any sort of check even possible if the user is running
>>>> 32-bit on 64-bit?
>>>
>>> Yes, if the CPU has the lm (long mode) flag, it's a 64-bit-capable CPU and
>>> using the 32-bit version is suboptimal.
>>>
>>>         Kevin Kofler
>>>
>> But wouldn't it be better to use 32 bit when less then 4 GB of ram is
>> present?
>
> no, using x86_64 means more registers, sse2 as default floating point
> instruction set, better calling convention (register passing vs.
> stack) or in other words in most cases faster code.

That's one side, the other side is:
* Larger demands on RAM (x86_64 is more demanding on memory
   requirements).
* More packages (rpms) to cope with.
* The "faster" is hardly sensible to ordinary users.

Ralf