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Hi all,
I'm using arch64 on my core 2 duo. Due the fact that flash etc are not working on 64bit, I use the 32bit chroot environment to be able to still use 32bit programs. However, I was reading on the internet that in order to execute a 32bit program on a 64bit processor the processor has to switch to a compatibilitymode to run the 32bit thread in 32bit mode. After that, the processor can switch to long mode (64bit mode) again.
But I'm wondering if this swich between compatibility 32bit mode and the 64bit long mode is made between every single thread that is being executed by the processor, or that if you run a single 32bit program anywhere on the system, the cpu switches to the 32bit compatibility mode and stays there as long as those 32bit programs are running.
Has anybody here the knowledge to explain this to me? It seems stupid to me that my whole cpu is running the whole time in a 32bit compatibilitymode due firefox+flash. Including the fact that all other 64bit programs of arch64 also needs to run on that compatibilitymode.
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Some intresting pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X64#Operating_modes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOW64
Last edited by Ibex (2008-04-03 12:49:58)
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Nobody with any knowledge on this topic?
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I'm using arch64 on my core 2 duo. Due the fact that flash etc are not working on 64bit...
Flash does work, if you use nspluginwrapper + nspluginwrapper-flash.
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