Talk me about 64 bit systems...

Suppose you just buy a new piece of computer, with 64 bit technology and everything you consider cool. And suppose you'd like to install a GNU/Linux system on it.

As you've got a 64 bit architecture, I think you should use a 64 bit distribution, right? Once you installed it, since the 32 bit instruction set should be still available, you should be able to run 32 bit applications as well.

The only thing that may prevent you to run it would be the use of shared libraries, since a 32 bit application could never dinamically load a 64 bit shared library...

Is there a leak in my reasoning?

>>6
Yes, it would be slightly wasteful, but you will be able to benefit from the extra cores, and the extra speed that newer Core2 CPUs have.

A quick google search will tell you that you need ia32-libs to run 32bit code from a 64bit Linux OS.

As for the other OSes:
On 64bit Windows, it can emulate 32bit apps using the Wow64 layer, it works pretty well.
On 32bit Windows, you can natively(at full speed) virtualize 64bit OSes using your favorite virtualization suite such as vmWare (will only work if your CPU has native virtualization support).

This question belongs in /g/, why did you ask /prog/ about it?