fbsd-amd64 desktop

[Francois Tigeot]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2006 at 02:03:50AM -0700, Ken Gunderson wrote:
> 
> I've only run fbsd-amd64 on servers.  My favorite server ports all
> work great but not sure about status of desktop related stuff.  For
> example, I know OpenOffice has issues.  Any other gotchas I should know
> about?

This will depend on your application mix.

I have been running a 64-bit desktop for about two years without too
much trouble apart from some Windowmaker bugs.

For OpenOffice, there is no native version and the FreeBSD/i386 package
doesn't run. The Linux/i386 version works like a charm, howewer.

> Also that there were some thread a while back that i386 was better
> performer if you don't need the extra ram capability.  But that was
> also in reference to 5.x.  

I believe it was mainly due to assembly optimized routines in the i386
version versus straight C for amd64.
FreeBSD/amd64 should become relatively faster as these are rewritten in
assembly again.

> What would y'all recommend for a desktop machine?

Why don't you try both ? You can partition the machine with a big home
directory shared between two different FreeBSD installations...

-- 
Francois Tigeot