Running 32bit OS on a 64 bit system

[asmar]

Hi guys,

I recently bought an AMD 64bit and notice that the flash player (macromedia) doesn't work plus some other w32codecs.
From an extensive search on internet I didn't find any way to install them apart from running them via a chroot environment which I don't want anyway.

In case that I will install the Debian Sarge 32bit distribution and recompile a kernel for 64 bit am I going to benefit its performance or it's no point?

Thanks a lot

[techieMoe]

32-bit OSes will run unmodified and very well on an AMD64 processor. I have never run into any software that will not run on the AMD64. You will not notice any appreciable difference in overall system performance using a 64-bit distro versus a 32-bit distro on an AMD64 at this time.

In the future when software developers begin to take full advantage of the new features of the AMD64-class processors this will change. Until then for simplicity sake I recommend you stick to 32-bit OSes on your AMD64.

[asmar]

Hi techieMoe,

I think you have absolut right, most of these kind of things (every X days new superb hardware) are just a marketing thing...

I still have an old good dual PIII with 200 days uptime, running Debian and have more than 4Mbit bandwidth per month with no problems at all.

Thanks

[jugio]

Agreed. Running my AMD64 just nicely with old 32-bit 2.4.29 kernel. No problems whatsoever, and at least with my use the system's been efficient enough.