-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI Greg, Based on your description, I hope you have a lot of memory in that machine! I'm thinking 1GB. The dual library installation was easy - SuSE does it for you with the RPMs. It was largely invisible to me until I compiled some software from source and noticed what was happening. Howard correctly notes that one occasinally needs to tweak the arguments passed to ./configure to get things to compile, and that this is not always documented in an obvious way. Make sure you have a stable motherboard. I've heard that sometimes they can be flaky and that can cause lockups and such, which are quite annoying. ;-) (In fact, I recently swapped out my flaky MSI MB in favor of a Tyan. Target practice, anyone?). I suppose one could install SuSE 32-bit on one part of the hard drive and SuSE 64-bit on the other, but I suspect that would defeat your goal of low maintenance since you'd end up tweaking both. Later, Andy Gregory Avedissian wrote:
Thanks for your answers, guys.
The person using this computer is doing genealogical research and writing. She also uses Gimp to create artwork, uses Skype for communications, and uses Geneweb for the genealogical database.
She runs KDE with eight virtual desktops, and they're usually all occupied. Typically, there will be multiple firefox tabs/windows open, sometimes on maps that require Flash, multiple text editor (gedit) tabs open, editing several files at once, moving large blocks of text. Gimp is frequently open with a work in progress (many edits) and Skype is always running. And there are usually at least two Konqueror windows open - one for the Geneweb database, and one for file browsing, and sometimes one on a website. Occasionally, she'll use OOo to deal with a word doc that someone sends her. With all these projects open, any lockups or having to shutdown creates a major pain in the ass.
The user is still fairly new to linux (about a year) and is way more interested in using it than in tweaking it. If anything has to be compiled from source, I'd be the one to do it. And I'd definitely need instructions on installing dual libraries. Stable and low-maintenance are important factors. I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to install both, on different partitions, and if one doesn't work, she can just switch to the other.
Greg Andy Stewart wrote:
HI Greg et al,
I have a dual Opteron at home running SuSE 9.2 with stock kernel upgrades. I am running the 64-bit version of SuSE with the exception of Firefox, which is a 32-bit executable. This is so that I can run the 32-bit version of Macromedia Flash and other plugins. I don't know of any 64-bit plugins for Firefox, and 64-bit Firefox, while it exists and functions, doesn't like 32-bit plugins, and I wanted the plugins. The 32-bit plugins work fine with the 32-bit Firefox. I have the Adobe plugin (32-bit), Flash, and Java.
I believe that everything else on my machine is 64-bits. SuSE has the RPMS for 32-bit as well as 64-bit libraries, both of which I have installed (in /usr/lib and /usr/lib64).
I'm not a software developer like Robert (Gutenprint), so my issues won't be the same. My use is that of a power user, and for that purpose, the 64-bit SuSE suits me well. Greg - what purpose will the machine serve?
Let's see - I run KDE 3.4.2 without problems, VMware (with the unofficial vmware-any-any patches), Qemu, Thunderbird, Firefox, amaroK, xmms, Gimp, seti boinc, cross compile to MIPS, XEmacs, and many others, all without problems. As Robert mentions, the problems really arise when one starts to deal with proprietary software (try finding a Cisco proprietary VPN driver for a dual x86_64 running Linux, for example...).
I think you'll also find yourself compiling from source more often. 64-bit RPMs aren't as easy to find as 32-bit RPMs. Also, on occasion, I've seen a source package have issues compiling on a 64-bit machine, but mostly they work fine if you have the necessary prerequisites installed.
Later,
Andy
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