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Old 25th June 2008
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kienjakenobi View Post
I am afraid this will be a futile inquiry, but I still have to ask.

amd64 contains the 32 bit code with 64 bit extensions. This means that I should be able to run i386 programs, amd64 programs, and ia64 programs, right?

Following this thought process, it seems that I should also be able to run the official NVIDIA video driver on my amd64 system, even though the driver is currently only made for i386. However, I do not actually hold much hope for this being true due to the low-level nature of drivers. It would be all too convenient to be able to run the official NVIDIA driver on amd64.

Of course, when I just try to install the NVIDIA driver from ports I get the message that it was meant for i386. Providing it will not botch up my system too badly, I might just unmask it and see how it works.

Humph! I also just realized the the open source NVIDIA driver (nouveau) is not in ports (Unless they are under some odd name). I suppose I could try building it from source, though I do not hold a whole lot of hope in that working either.
IA64 is Itanium 64, Intel orignally planned to phase out the x86 family and move forward with that architecture. (Which is very different.. thus, not supported by either AMD64/Intel 64)

AMD64 and Intel 64(or EM64T) are extensions to the x86 architecture, registers and address sizes have been increased.. and among other things the introduction of Long Mode.

Long mode has 2 sub-modes, 64-bit only mode and a "Compatibility" mode, in compatibility mode 64-bit/32-bit and 16-bit code can run together..

OpenBSD is an example of an AMD64 port that does not utilize Compatibility mode, I believe FreeBSD does though.

As for your question about drivers, no, it's much different to have 32-bit applications running under a 64-bit OS, but 32-bit drivers is completely different story.

Last edited by BSDfan666; 25th June 2008 at 03:44 PM.
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