Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Posted Dec 9, 2004 17:25 UTC (Thu) by bos (guest, #6154)
In reply to: Fedora Core 3 on AMD64 by nix
Parent article: Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Linux has worked on UltraSPARC for years, fully 64-bit.

Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Posted Dec 9, 2004 23:01 UTC (Thu) by xorbe (guest, #3165) [Link] (3 responses)

I think nix was making a joke.

Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Posted Dec 10, 2004 7:36 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

The phraseology made the mild sarcasm fairly clear (or at least I hoped it did; obviously not clear enough).

Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Posted Dec 13, 2004 20:36 UTC (Mon) by knut (guest, #4309) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, every joke/sarcasm contains a grain of truth :-)

Have a look at the Linux Ultra FAQ, question 1.5:
(http://www.ultralinux.org/faq.html#q_1_5)

5. Is everything 64-bit on sparc64, and can I compile 64-bit applications ?

The kernel and kernel modules are 64-bit on sparc64, userland is still 32-bit, and in fact the same as on sparc32. The conversion between native 32- and 64-bit function calls is being done via the kernel. Allthough you can compile a kernel with egcs64, you can't really use this compiler for building 64-bit userland binaries. See also "Why can't I compile certain software on my sparc64 ?" in Section 9.

Best regards,

Knut

Fedora Core 3 on AMD64

Posted Dec 14, 2004 23:38 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That FAQ entry is grossly outdated. GCC-3.2+ is able to compile 64-bit apps perfectly well on sparc64 (my kernel is compiled with 3.4.3 as are most of the 64-bit apps I use, and none show any ill effects).

I deleted the ancient egcs-19980921.1 compiler nearly a year ago, and haven't missed it once.

I have a number of 64-bit apps and libs here (XEmacs and dependencies, Octave, the backup program dar(1) which eats address space for breakfast), although the majority are still 32-bit (and will stay that way, because 32-bit stuff is generally faster than 64-bit stuff on UltraSPARC because all the instructions and pointers are smaller so it keeps memory fetches down).