As you will have no doubt heard today, Adobe are making available a 64-bit version of the Flash Player for Linux to those who want to be on the cutting edge (it’s still alpha).
When I heard this, I couldn’t help but ask myself “Why? Why on earth do you need a 64-bit Flash player?”. I don’t think there is a single Flash application out there that has reached the constraints of a 32-bit environment and I doubt a single Flash developer has wished he had a full 64-bit address space, nor do I think they ever will.
What’s more, Firefox, in which you’re likely to be running the Flash player is only 64-bit if you compile it yourself. Why do you need a 64-bit version of Firefox anyway? Are there plans for it to gobble up even more memory than it used to?
Anyway, I headed over to the Adobe Flash Player 10 labs site to see what this was all about, and then I found my answer, I think:
[...] an alpha version of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on 11/17/2008 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation. [...]
It’s there in the “remove the need for 32-bit emulation” bit. Huh? I must be missing something coming from a Solaris background - why do you need to emulate a 32-bit environment? Why don’t you just run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively? Solaris does this very well. vi, ls, Firefox, ping etc all run perfectly fine compiled as 32-bit binaries on the same machine on which a huge behemoth of a 64-bit Oracle installation, CAD application or earth simulator so why not Linux? Does the Linux kernel have an all-or-nothing (or should that be all-or-nothing-unless-you’re-happy-emulating) approach when it comes to running in 64-bit mode?
Aside from my lack of knowledge in the Linux kernel world, I can’t help but feel this is Adobe pandering to people who use 64-bit computing purely for the “I’m trying to be cool” factor. Your average general purpose server or desktop machine (like most computer installations) is not going to need to run completely 64-bit, especially when most applications that will be running in the 64-bit environment are just going to be recompiled versions of the 32-bit code, so won’t actually be taking advantage of the functionality anyway.
Anyway, this is their choice and only time will tell how good a decision it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just a recompiled version of the 32-bit code either.
9 Responses to “64-bit Flash Player For Linux - Why?”
Speak Your Mind 
Search
Recommended Book
Related Entries
I think the point is that you can’t run a 32-bit plugin in a 64-bit browser (without a hack that comes with other problems). Running 32-bit software on 64-bit linux works fine (it’s how I run skype).
Thanks Nathan, but why would you want to run a 64-bit browser? What benefit do you get from running a 64-bit browser over a 32-bit browser?
Well, processors are all 64-bit, and all Linux software except some proprietary stuff handles it very well. AFAIK, Linux is well ahead of Windows in this area. It’s not really about the constraints of 32-bit (except possibly RAM limits), but about 64-bit being what’s next. It’s just a matter of time.
only 64-bit can make use of RAM more than 3 GB…
Nel: It’s actually 4GB and that’s still not strictly true. It’s also got nothing really to do with using a 64-bit browser or flash plugin as I certainly hope neither will ever have the need to use or address that much memory.
AFAIK, running 32-bit applications on a 32-bit Kernel on 64-bit CPU architecture (at least in the AMD/Intel world), net’s a 12% loss in CPU performance.
This is a result of using 32-bit CPU calls on a 64-bit CPU (you lose some performance when the CPU emulates old 32-bit calls).
Moving to a 64-bit application on 64-bit Kernel (on a 64-bit CPU) removes this lossage.
There are other factors that would entice a company like Adobe to move to 64-bit.
The majority of Adobe’s money is made from customers using Windows or MacOS(X). 32-bit Windows can currently only address ~3.2GB RAM, and laptops and desktops routinely come with 4GB of RAM now. If Windows on the desktop doesn’t move to 64-bit, Windows-centric hardware vendors (Dell, Acer) are losing out with their competitors who are vendor neutral (IBM/Lenovo and others).
OEM Vendors then put pressure on companies like Adobe to ensure that bundled applications such as Acrobat Reader and Flash Player work soundly with the OS, so as to not cause many software support calls to the OEM Vendor.
And of course, with everyone nipping at Microsoft heals, if Windows desktops become 64-bit by default, you can guarantee that is the way that Red Hat, Cannonincal, SuSE and Apple will go with their desktops (if Apple hasn’t already).
At that point Adobe is faced with an internal development and support problem. Maintain 64-bit PDF/Flash on Windows, but 32-bit PDF/Flash on Unix? Or create a 64-bit version of PDF/Flash on all OS’s with the view that they will drop support for 32-bit versions at earliest point that the market will accept that.
p.s. Yes Linux can address more than 4GB on a 32-bit kernel, only if the PAE (Physical Address Extensions) support has been compiled in to the kernel. Without it, Linux hits the 32-bit 4GB Max RAM limits too.
When I use BOINC, with some Work Units, I have a performance increase having 64-bit vs. 32-bit. So coming from that perspective, if I don’t have the overhead that was mentioned (by Mike) in a forum post before (12% decrease of performance running 32-bit software on 64-bit CPU), my computer can do more volunteer work for BOINC. If I happen to be really pushing my computer in another way, doing say video conversion, while at the same time using Flash Player, not having that overhead would speed the video conversion that much more. Sure it might seem like details that hardly matter but computers just keep becoming faster so why not optimize software to keep up with the hardware? Optimized software is going to come sooner or later because hardware improvements are going to happen anyway. If Adobe lags behind for long enough, that little bit of software performance loss is going to keep increasing and then they won’t be competitive with other software businesses.
I’m running 64 bit slackware. Unlike Windows, Linux doesn’t have a 32 bit subsystem so have to run 64 bit applications. I believe that’s why Adobe has released the 64 bit flash player for Linux and not MS products.
It’s difficult to use 64 bit for common people like me in Linux. Have you tried finding drivers for 64 bit Linux Architectures? It’s torture. You can see other people enjoying 32 bit precompiled drivers, while you’re tripping in the dark fixing your dependencies and compiling drivers, which in the end results in ERROR. Now, when it comes to 64 bit Flash, the blog is right, 32 bit is enough. Maybe when we have virtual reality on the Internet, we need 64 bit and 128 bit, etc…