[PlanetCCRMA] 64bit vs 32bit

[Niels Mayer]

as an alternative to the rme route, you can go the low-cost route I
suggested, and buy a used magma cardbus-to-pci box, and stick a few used
solid/reliable pci cards in it, e.g. M-Audio Delta 66. I haven't tried this,
so if you do, please let us know how it works out.

W/r/t 64 bit flash: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html
I'm not having any problems running the few 32-bit only apps on this 64 bit
system. Even bad-behaved apps like skype. as long as the system has 32 bit
and 64 bit libs (by default, only 64 bit for most libs) you should be good
to go. When running a 32 bit app on a 64 bit system, if an error about a
missing lib is emitted, do 'rpm -qf /usr/lib/missinglib.so' to find out what
package you need to manually install in order to get that missing 32 bit
lib. Install, run again until it stops emitting errors. Of course you can
also use ldd(1) to achieve the same goals.

Therefore, you can probably run 32 bit 'pd' on a 64 bit F12 system, w/ all
32 bit libs resolved.

i'm running stock f12 x86_64 w/o a realtime kernel and it's ok for music. Of
course, I have a Phenom II 965 (3.4 G quad core_, 1333Mhz 4G 1333Mhz DDR3
Ram on ASUS_M4A78T-E, 32M cache on my 500G RAID1 drives, etc (nothing
special just a recently built $700 desktop box). If i want to raise my
powerbills I can even overclock it to 4G (but then it gets loud and uses
lots of power).

A core-i7 laptop would be good for music:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/beats/envy_15.html hopefully they
won't overheat
while going full-bore during a performance. The SSD is probably helpful, for
live performance. I wonder if laptop DJ's at clubs have ever had their hard
drives fail or mistrack due to bass vibration?

Of course, for doing live performance where one doesn't actually care about
it being a laptop, just portable, one might be better off getting a 19" EIA
rack flightcase w/ shockmounts and a rackmount comp case, fill it w/ a
standard Mobo and processor like the $700 job I just built, and one of those
rackmount slideout-drawer keyboard/displays like they have in server cages
at colocation facilities. Plus it would just look very kraftwerk-like
compared to a slick-looking, overpriced, underperforming laptop.

Plus with all the soundcards built into the case, there's less chance for
somebody to accidentally yank the firewire cable or USB cable out of the
soundcard mid-performance. That really sucks because you end up having to
reboot mid-performance; with external gear,  there's all manner of cables
and connectors to get unplugged or vibrate loose. Also, there's much less
chance of a non-laptop system dying from overheating -- often live
performance venues get warm on stage, leading to crashes and instabilities
you didn't see during practice.

Niels
http://nielsmayer.com


PS: these notes may be of use w/r/t 64 bit flash & java plugins:

(1) Java (this link is outdated -- now the rregular release, not prerelease
supports 64 bit applets, but not installed correctly by default so technique
I describe still applies):
http://nielsmayer.com/xwiki/bin/view/fedora10/64bitJavaAppletIn64BitFirefox

(2) FLash:
installed /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html

removed all traces of 32 bit flash plugin:
(1) yum remove flash-plugin
(2) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so
(3) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_32.libflashplayer.so
(4) rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
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