was told recently that x64 versions of linux can still run 32bit drivers. is this true and does anyone have an article that may explain how this works? cus if that's true, i'm beginning to questions microsofts decision to use ONLY 64bit drivers for winxp pro x64 edition

It's true. The theory is that if you run a pure 64bit system, and everything is 'optimized' for a 64bit CPU, then the applications will run smoother and faster than it's 32-bit equivilent. The other good thing about running "ONLY" 64bit drivers/software is that you don't have to maintain 2 sets of applications (of the same release even) on a single OS.

There are probably hundreds of other benefits, but from a maintanence POV, that'd be my reasoning.

Cool

Hey, MasterC

Did you purposely turn off your Signature?

Hey Nonsence

I am happily using AMD64 mobility Athlon 3000 at between 800-2000 KHz on my laptop with SUSE 10oss 64-bit and it runs 32-bit software out of the box (or in the case of Firefox 1.0.7 as downloaded as a 32-bit application) the only slight complication I have encountered is having to put Lame file(s) into /lib and /lib64 to enable XMMS with an old Winamp skin (yes, you guessed it, a Ferrari skin) to play my MP3's.

Anyway, as far as I know, there is no problem running most (legacy) 32-bit apps on a 64-bit linux OS. And as you can possibly see from my signature, I am experimenting with xen3.0 64-bit which allows concurrent running of 32-bit and 64-bit distros - so if you want to experiment with both 32-bit and 64-bit OS's on a 64-bit CPU'd hardware I would suggest AMD over Intel (at the moment) and linux over MS. The User's Guide provided with Suse10 OSS (downloadable version) is the best I have seen on setting up xensoftware and virtual machines and version 3.0 is included as are a variety of tools under YAST for installation and setup.

Hope this helps

I'll look into my signature, not sure where it went

Thanks!