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Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:19:17 +0000
From: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org>
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To: Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: switching from i386 to amd64
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On 12/16/12 11:00, Aryeh Friedman wrote:
> I have been using i386 (-STABLE) for years now and was wondering if
> switching to amd64 finally makes sense (i.e. are enough ports working
> on it now [xfrce4, firefox, libreoffice, openjdk-6, tomcat, mysql,
> apache22, flash, cups, devel/aegis, devel/cook, devel/fhist,
> virtualbox-ose, nvidia-kmod are the minimal ones I need]) the main
> reason for asking is PAE seems to be broken now and virtualbox-ose
> refuses to let me install 64 bit OS's like Win 8.

I've been using amd64 since I built my current box in April 2008 
(starting with 7.0-RELEASE) and have never had a problem. However, I 
avoid Flash like the plague it is. I recently installed an nVidia card 
and have no problems with the driver - the latest release dealt with the 
screen flash problem I had been having.

As far as I understand, PAE usage has always had the caveat that certain 
device drivers may not work with it, and I suspect PAE support is 
suffering bit rot.