Fedora 9 32 or 64 Bit - Which One?

[Kevin Kofler]

Bill Davidsen <davidsen <at> tmr.com> writes:
> I think I see the reason this 32 vs 64 doesn't get resolved, the people who 
> say  "what hassles" or "it just works" are all either genuine experts such as
> you, people who do system administration "as a job" rather than "so they can 
> do their job," and a few people who present themselves as experts and expect 
> others to take opinion as gospel, actual expertise unknown.

Or maybe they just don't use proprietary software?

> Based on notes about having to hand install both 32 bit and 64 bit versions
> of libraries and a few other minor diddles, which are not worth noticing to
> the experts, but confusing and worrisome for the users who are either just
> running applications or developing desktop applications.

The Free (as in speech) Software included in Fedora works just fine 
without "having to hand install both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of libraries". 
It's all natively 64-bit, with very few exceptions (the most high-profile one 
being WINE, whose primary use is to run proprietary software, once again), and 
even for those exceptions, yum will automatically install the required 32-bit 
multilibs.

Only third-party proprietary software which isn't even properly packaged (i.e. 
in an RPM with proper dependencies, not in a tarball or in some cross-distro 
RPM (a concept broken by design) which is missing all its dependencies like the 
Flash one) is the one causing problems. If you use unpackaged (or incorrectly 
packaged) third-party software, you have to expect to have to run some commands 
by hand. I wouldn't qualify a single line of yum as a real hassle. Especially 
as it's a one-time thing.

        Kevin Kofler