How long will 64bit Ubuntu users have to wait?

[Sebastien Bacher]

Le samedi 30 septembre 2006 à 10:26 -0500, Kilz _ a écrit :

> The amount of 64bit systems sold is growing. Your suggestion that it helps 
> few is wrong imho. You will deffnatly not see 64bit Vista users chose 32bit 
> Ubuntu no matter what you say. Once its released you will be playing catch 
> up.

Your main argument seems to be that most users are not going to be
wanting installing a 32 bits OS on a 64 bits computer when a 64 bits one
is available.
I'm not convinced that people will look probably first look at the
applications available, the price, what the interface looks like. If the
feature level is the same they will probably pick the optimized one
then.

For my part I've no issue installing an i386 distribution on an amd64.
You seem to make a principe to run an 64bit distribution matching your
processor, that's your choice. 

According to my mailbox you have posted 43 mails on that topic now, most
of people probably get your point, could you move the discussion
somewhere else or how the list now? That list is supposed to be a
working place and that topic seems to loop on the same argues again and
again now and not be constructive


> Thank you for admiting the 64bit version is way behind to the point that you 
> recommend the 32bit one. It proves my point that it is in need of a lot of 
> work.

I think nobody denies that the amd64 version lacks some feature compared
to the i386 one at the moment (flash, w32codecs, wine). People disagree
on what should be the priority though and you can't force people to work
on what is the priority for you, repeating the same argument again and
again the same will not change that. You pointed that lot of forum users
are asking about running wine on amd64 by example. How many are asking
about how to try compiz or xgl on Ubuntu? I would be curious to know
which one is the most requested. The Ubuntu team has limited ressources
the work has to be prioritized. You will probably argue than firefox32
should be worked first. Some people probably thing than working on
compiz integration (by example) would make users happier.

The best you can do is probably to find people motivated by maintaining
firefox32 and the few packages you want available on amd64, create a
team and start working on that. If people take do the work and take
responsability for it there is no reason it'll be refused


Cheers,

Sebastien Bacher