Re: Resurrect discussion: Mixing 32 and 64 bit distro

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 04:40:09PM +0100, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>On Feb 12 10:29, Earnie Boyd wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 8:40 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> > Hi guys,
>> >
>> >
>> > I slept a bit bad tonight.
>> >
>> > As you may or may not remember, we had a discussion about how to go
>> > forward with a 64 bit distro in 2011.
>> >
>> > In this discussion I held vehemently to the view that we have to create
>> > the 64 bit distro in a way which allows to mix Cygwin 64 and 32 bit
>> > applications freely.  My main point was that it may take a long time
>> > until we get all the Cygwin 32 bit packages built for 64 bit, and
>> > therefore have to provide a mix so that users can adopt the 64 bit
>> > distro early without having to drop the tools they are using.
>> >
>> > But is that really so?  I'm not so sure anymore.  Maybe that problem
>> > is exaggerated or overvalued.
>> 
>> Maybe overvalued.  Would an idea that 32bit executables use the 32bit
>> runtime and 64bit executables use the 64bit runtime be bad?  So for
>> the time being deliver both 32bit cygwin1.dll and cyg64w1.dll (I
>> forget what you called it) and allow the executables to use the
>> correct version?
>
>That wasn't the question.  Of course, if you mix the distros, you will
>have to provide two DLLs, one for 32 and one for 64 bit.  The question
>is, shall the 32 and 64 bit Cygwin DLLs interact or not.   Keep 32 and
>64 bit distinct from each other or not.  Even if you just mix them into
>one /bin, you have to keep the new cyg64 DLL prefix.  But then again
>you would get the same result by having two distinct distros and add the
>other /bin dir to $PATH, without the requirement to keep the cyg64
>DLL prefix.

I think two distinct distros with no explicit understanding between the
32-bit and 64-bit is the sanest approach.  I hate the thought of lots of
code in 64-bit Cygwin to specifically deal with 32-bit aps.

Would it be possible to write some kind of "shim" 64-bit application
which "did something" to run a 32-bit Cygwin for people who can't
wait to have their favorite package ported to 64-bit?

cgf