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Linux was simpler to emulate back then, it has grown in complexity and the emulation has not kept up, although it does work for some use cases. Having worked on
by justincormack 12y ago
Linux was simpler to emulate back then, it has grown in complexity and the emulation has not kept up, although it does work for some use cases. Having worked on testing for the NetBSD Linux emulation (its getting better, didnt help having no tests) there is quite a lot missing (epoll for example is not yet emulated). FreeBSD still appears to only have 32 bit emulation which rules out most modern Linux apps.
- thejdude 12y agoWhat is it that makes "most modern Linux apps" not run on 32bit? Last I checked, pretty much all packages were available for both x86 and x64. If you're talking enterprise use, sure, some app servers might need more than a few GB, but that's a memory problem, not strictly a bitness problem.
- MichaelGG 12y agoWell the idea of using mmap for large areas to simplify development can mean 32bit isn't usable even if the program doesn't need that much memory. It's about the address space in that case. One program would spin up lots of threads, each with a 1MB stack, which was hardly used. It'd die on 32bit even with no real memory pressure. Also, 32bit is less likely to get as much testing for server apps.
- justincormack 12y agoWell docker has no 32 bit support. And not sure most proprietary software for Linux has 32 bit binaries still. Use of mmap. But you are right a lot of things still work. Only DragonflyBSD has dropped 32 bit support do far. Linux probably will by 2039 though as they seem unwilling to fix that.