The value of 64-bit vs 32-bit

[Jeremy Huntwork]

Bryan Kadzban wrote:
> I wouldn't bother benchmarking it.  Every single time that a bit width
> increase has come along so far, it has eventually won out (except Itanium,
> which came along too early and without enough attention paid to having
> some sort of backward compatibility).  I don't think it's a question of
> whether people should use 64-bit; I think it's a question of when they
> will eventually move to it en masse.

Well, the hardware has already moved en masse. All of AMD's current 
chips appear to support 64-bit. And even Intel's low-end Celeron chips 
these days support 64-bit.

As far as software goes, nearly all (if not all) of the major Linux 
distros provide an x86_64 bit version. Software that is not usable or 
buildable on 64-bit is becoming more the exception than the rule.

If the argument that '64-bit is where computing is unequivocally 
heading' is enough to bring 64-bit support into LFS, then to me that is 
enough to provide support without justification, or without worrying 
about listing pros and cons. It is what it is, and just the natural 
progression of things.

The only consideration, to my mind, would then be: should LFS worry 
about providing multilib support or not?

--
JH