[Melbourne-pm] [OT] Seeking the 64-bit linux that's right for me

[Andrew Pam]

On Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 04:26:57PM +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> The reason why Debian and derivatives may not be as suitable for
> x86-64 is because I believe the x86-64 version does not allow you to
> easily install 32-bit i386 packages.

On Ubuntu 12.04 and later, you just add ":i386" to the package name when 
using apt-get on the command line.  I have a mixture of i386 and x64 
packages on my desktop and run previously-installed 32-bit Java, Windows 
(using Wine) and native Linux applications concurrently with 64-bit ones 
just fine.  The dependency management will usually install both 
architectures automatically where required.

Hope that helps,
		Andrew