Upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 14:11 -0700, Harold Hallikainen wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-09-07 at 10:32 -0700, Waldher, Travis R wrote:
> >> What is involved for Redhat AS 4.0?
> >>
> >> The system was initially built 32bit, but some users would like it
> >> running in 64.
> >>
> >> Is it as simple as loading a different kernel? :fingerscrossed:
> >
> > Well, yeah, but most of your applications won't be accelerated that
> > much.  A full 64-bit system will have most of the utilities (/bin,
> > /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, etc.) built with 64-bit as well as having
> > full 64-bit libraries (/usr/lib64 as well as /usr/lib).
> >
> > Can you run a 64-bit kernel with 32-bit utilities?  Sure.  Will it buy
> > you much?  Not really.  For example, I run an Opteron at home with full
> > FC5 64-bit stuff.  Real grunt work (compilations, OpenOffice, etc.) are
> > MUCH faster under 64-bit.
> >
> > I do run some 32-bit apps on it, however.  Some examples are: 32-bit
> > firefox so I can have Flash (there's no Flash plugin for 64-bit), Skype
> > (no 64-bit version available), and Opera (same thing). They work fine
> > and do seem a bit faster, but that's a purely subjective opinion.  I've
> > done no benchmarking on them.  Your mileage may vary.  It won't hurt to
> > try running a 64-bit kernel and see what you think.  You can always boot
> > the 32-bit one if you don't care for it.
> >
> 
> 
> I'm also running FC5-64 and have run into the lack of a Flash plug-in.
> What do I do to uninstall the 64 bit FireFox and put in 32 bit, the flash
> plug-in, etc? Can yum do it? When I try to install Flash, the script seems
> to do an OS check and then complain about it being 64 bit. How do you get
> around that? For VoIP, I just installed the latest Gizmo Project, and it
> seems to work fine.

I kept the 64-bit FireFox.  I just downloaded the 32-bit RPM and did an
"rpm -ivh --force /path/to/32-bit/rpm/firefox.whatever.rpm".  Then I
grabbed the Flash player and buggered the OS detection bit of their
install script.  Look in the installer script for a call to "uname -m".
Then add a clause that duplicates the i686 stuff.  It'll be around line
252.  Here's how I modified it:

	TEMPARCH=`uname -m`
	case $TEMPARCH in
		i[3456]86)
			ARCH=i386
			;;
NEW->		x86_64)
NEW->			ARCH=i386
NEW->			;;

Then run the installer as normal.  When it asks you where to install
the FLASH player, specify "/usr/lib/firefox".

Then I added a new icon to the desktop that specifically runs
/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin and labeled it "Firefox (32-bit)".  Voila!
Click on the original icon, you get 64-bit Firefox.  Click on the new
one and you get 32-bit Firefox with Flash.

If you like, delete the old icon.  I like having both.  Actually, I have
four...mozilla (64-bit), firefox (64- and 32-bit), and Opera (32-bit).
Ah, decisions...decisions! :-)
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  You know the old saying--any technology sufficiently advanced is  -
-               indistinguishable from a Perl script                 -
-                                 --Programming Perl, 2nd Edition    -
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