x86_64 (down the road)

[RageLtMan]

I'm finding myself doing a lot of my training on VMs i run via VirtualBox in BT4. However, running multiple Windows VMs (2k8 etc) as well as running 64bit VMs is problematic on an x86 platform. I've tried making kernels with PAE support to make the best use of the physical memory i have, but it fails on boot and i'm back @ square one. The voice of reason tells me that simply recompiling my kernel to 64bit isn't going to work as it will likely require every driver and anything else that uses system resources in any direct/semi-direct manner to be recompiled as well. Given that almost any laptop on sale today is running either intel or amd 64bit multi core chips, how difficult would it be to set up a 64 bit distro? What would have to be changed?

[Archangel-Amael]

I'm finding myself doing a lot of my training on VMs i run via VirtualBox in BT4. However, running multiple Windows VMs (2k8 etc) as well as running 64bit VMs is problematic on an x86 platform. I've tried making kernels with PAE support to make the best use of the physical memory i have, but it fails on boot and i'm back @ square one. The voice of reason tells me that simply recompiling my kernel to 64bit isn't going to work as it will likely require every driver and anything else that uses system resources in any direct/semi-direct manner to be recompiled as well. Given that almost any laptop on sale today is running either intel or amd 64bit multi core chips, how difficult would it be to set up a 64 bit distro? What would have to be changed?

I have mentioned this to you before in the old forums. The tools in BT are not 64bit compatible and will not work.

[purehate]

We are striving for this at some point in the future however, it is tons more work. It involes rebuilding every single package and many other thing. Its in our minds and our goals but it may be a long time coming.

[RageLtMan]

This is something i'm a bit fuzzy on - is it just the drivers/system involved software that needs to be recompiled, or everything? Windows seems able to run 32bit software but i dont know the black magic involved to be honest - whether or not its even possible to run 32 bit programs natively on something that can address twice the memory space.

given the fact that laptops are coming with 8GB of ram and such i'm wondering what the community could do to help.