Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Quotes of the week

Posted Jun 14, 2012 13:14 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875)
In reply to: Quotes of the week by jschrod
Parent article: Quotes of the week

You missed my point. I never said that the system should be a x86_64 base, only the kernel. And *that* works just fine on i386 installations.

I've been running an i386 userspace system on an x86_64 kernel since 2005. Never had any issues with it.

Debian today now even supplies a 64bit kernel with its i386 distribution. Although, I think you still need to install the i386 kernel first, and then upgrade to the 64bit kernel after install. The package is:

linux-image-amd64

(Log in to post comments)

Quotes of the week

Posted Jun 14, 2012 16:45 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

You are right. I didn't know about the linux-image-amd64 package.
So, Debian has the ability to install a 64bit kernel on a 32bit system.

According to http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=precise&arch=..., Ubuntu has no such package.

I know that RHEL 6 and its derivates have no such package, and neither does SLE nor openSUSE. I assume that Fedora has none either.

I'd say, even with this correction, my original statement stands: If one looks at the major distributions, one sees the reason why not more people use such an installation.

Quotes of the week

Posted Jun 14, 2012 16:56 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link]

Which gives more reason to add that message.

It will give the major distros more incentive to make their i386 userspace include a x86_64 kernel. Otherwise the kernel will keep calling their users idiots ;-)