Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 198 — #224

SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for the ipf, ppc64, s390x, sparc64, amd64,

and em64t 64-bit platforms is designed so that existing 32-bit applications

run in the 64-bit environment “out-of-the-box.” The corresponding 32-bit

platforms are x86 for ipf, ppc for ppc64, s390 for s390x, and x86 for amd64

and em64t. This support means that you can continue to use your preferred

32-bit applications without waiting for a corresponding 64-bit port to be-

come available. The current ppc64 system runs in 32-bit mode, but you can

use 64-bit applications.

To understand 32-bit support, consider the following issues:

Runtime Support How can 32-bit applications be executed?

Development Support How should 32-bit applications be compiled to

enable them to run both in 32-bit and 64-bit system environments?

Kernel API How can 32-bit applications run under a 64-bit kernel?

7.1 Runtime Support

Note

Conﬂicts between Application Versions

If an application is available both for 32-bit and 64-bit environ-

ments, the parallel installation of both versions is bound to lead

to problems. In such cases, decide on one of the two versions and

install and use this.

Note

To be executed correctly, every application requires a range of libraries.

Unfortunately, the names for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these li-

braries are identical. They must be differentiated from each other in an-

other way. The same approach is used for the 64-bit platforms ppc64,

s390x, sparc64, amd64, and em64t: to retain compatibility with the 32-bit

version, the libraries are stored at the same place in the system as in the

32-bit environment. The 32-bit version of libc.so.6 is located under

/lib/libc.so.6 in both the 32-bit and 64-bit environments.

198 7.1. Runtime Support