[SOLVED] Use 32-bit Slackware? Post here to let the developers know!
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This is independent from UEFI and AFAIK multilib systems are not only currently not supported by SlackBuilds.org, but they aren't in general.
Thats my sole purpose for booting a 32 bit distribution on a fast x86-64 machine: Building clean 32 bit packages in a 32 bit environment. Currently I'm not able to do this on an UEFI machine without emulating an BIOS.
Thats my sole purpose for booting a 32 bit distribution on a fast x86-64 machine: Building clean 32 bit packages in a 32 bit environment. Currently I'm not able to do this on an UEFI machine without emulating an BIOS.
Couldn't you just install Slackware (32 bit) under a virtual machine and build there?
I have three systems running Slackware 32-bit, and one running 64-bit.
I run 32-bit on two old laptops that aren't 64-bit capable. I have two 64-bit capable desktop systems, but I'm running 32-bit on my main desktop system because I don't want to deal with multilib. The other is a headless command-line only server system that just provides local services, so I don't need multilib on it. I run Slackware64 on that one.
maintenance should be no worse than the 32-bit install you planned to have anyway to reboot into. Also whilst I would agree there is a performance penalty it need not be massive and in addition you gain some benefits, e.g. not having to reboot.
Thats my sole purpose for booting a 32 bit distribution on a fast x86-64 machine: Building clean 32 bit packages in a 32 bit environment. Currently I'm not able to do this on an UEFI machine without emulating an BIOS.
For that purpose I simply use a chroot with a 32 bit install. Maintenance comes down to the usual two slackpkg commands, mounting things like /dev, ... to the chroot and chrooting into it is done by a script. My .zshrc in the chroot contains a simple ARCH="i486". This way I have maximum compiling power with minimal overhead.
I'm poor and use ancient hardware, so 32-bit is it for me for now. I like Slackware so much that I'm happy to be a paying subscriber. Thanks to Pat and all of the others for all of their hard work and dedication.
You will have to switch to 64-bit one day, and it's not too far off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruario
It remains pretty far of for as long as the low end VPS accounts offer only 256 or 512Mb of RAM.
OK, I still don't have to switch but decision making time is indeed coming up faster than I expected as Linode just doubled the RAM on all their accounts bringing me and anyone else here who has a basic Linode account, up to 1Gb. I remember at least that audriusk does:
Quote:
Originally Posted by audriusk
32-bit Slackware is still useful on a small VPS (up to 2GB RAM), I do have one from Linode (512MB RAM).
TobiSGD earlier suggested that the performance benefits of 64-Bit actually start to take effect just below the 1Gb mark, not the 2Gb mark as is widely assumed. So my personal use case for 32-bit seems like it may have been thrown out the window (though it is certainly still valid for those using other VPS providers with lower RAM offerings, of which there are plenty).
Off-Topic Postscript:
Whilst I am obviously very happy that Linode is updating and improving their products (at no extra cost to me) the timing is a bit annoying as I only just upgraded from 13.37 to 14.0 less than a week ago and now I am wondering if I should backup my configuration and reinstall with Slackware64. That will be a bit of a PITA since Linode does not yet have 14.0 install images, so I'll probably select 13.37 and do another upgrade again (at least I made notes).
On the other hand I also don't really need any performance boost right now, particularly given that Linode also recently gave me access to 8 cores running at 2.6 Ghz (of course I can't always access all of that as I'm on the cheapest Linode package and hence have low priority). Still there is a temptation to make the best use of what I have.
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