Any plans for a 64 bit native version? What about other unix flavors?

[chrestomanci]

Are there any plans for a 64bit native version of Beyond Compare 3?

I run an AMD 64 bit version of Ubuntu Linux. I suspect that a lot of linux users who have 64 bit hardware run a 64 bit version of the OS, because almost all applications are available in 64 bit versions. I have got the 32 bit Linux build working via a 32 bit chroot environment, but it does not play nice with Subversion because meta chars in pathnames are not properly handled by the chroot scripts.

Anyway, all that pain and flakiness would disappear if there was a native 64bit build. I
dare say there are some windows 64 bit users out there that would also benifit.

While we are considering other platforms, I am confident that a Solaris 10 version would go down well with fellow sysadmins where I work, so If you have got the source code to be portable and compile on non windows systems, the next step to a wider range of platforms should be much easier.

[Craig]

Doesn't Linux just run 32-bit apps normally, with the linker deciding whether to load 32-bit or 64-bit libraries like Windows x64 does?

Past that, no, we don't have any immediate plans to do a 64-bit native Linux compile. Doing so would require switching compilers (from Kylix to FreePascal) and replacing the widget set we're using. Because of limitations in our current compiler/libraries we'll probably end up doing both eventually, but we'd like to get a stable useable 32-bit release out first.

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by Craig

Doesn't Linux just run 32-bit apps normally, with the linker deciding whether to load 32-bit or 64-bit libraries like Windows x64 does?

Unfortunately the dynamic linker is not that smart, and it will attempt use native 64 bit libraries with a 32 bit application. There are plans for a smarter run time dynamic linker that would support 32 and 64 bit versions of the same dynamic libraries side by side, but that is a big project, and probably 18 months out.

In the meantime, the work around is to setup a chroot environment, containing a 32bit linux install, with a complete set of 32 bit libraries and 32 bit only applications. The problem I have found is that is that when you invoke 32 bit applications in the chroot environment, and 'special' characters in the command line arguments cause problems.

[DEinspanjer]

Bleh. I just made exactly the decision mentioned here, I've got a laptop with a Core 2 Duo processor so I felt there was no reason not to install the 64bit Ubuntu 7.10 since Linux treats the 64bit world so much better. I didn't remember this thread about Cirrus not easily working in this environment until I went to install it.

I guess I'll have to learn exactly how to do the chrooted 32bit environment mentioned. It isn't something I'm familiar with so it might be a bit painful.

[wstanton]

While I would like to see a native 64bit version, I have been successful running Cirrus under the 64bit native installation of Ubuntu 7.10. All I had to do was install the ia32-libs and ia32-libs-kde packages.

With these packages load I was not required to run a chroot jail for it.

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by DEinspanjer

I guess I'll have to learn exactly how to do the chrooted 32bit environment mentioned. It isn't something I'm familiar with so it might be a bit painful.

Instructions are here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24575

It is not to hard to follow, but the scripts used tend to barf over any special chars in the filename such as spaces, brackets quotes etc, so for this reason you can't integrate a chrooted BC into a linux subversion client.

[z00m1n]

I have to say while I am using BC2 on a daily basis and it is probably one of my most valuable tools, I haven't looked at version 3 yet.

I just started a new job for a Linux company and after a couple of hours in the office, I notice how bitterly I miss BC. It is fantastic to see there is a Linux version, but all my machines run 64bit Linux, so until I can download a native 64bit version, there doesn't seem to be too much real-world benefit in it for me (as in something I would pay and upgrade for).

(Is there a Mac version planned ? I would start saving for a Mac then...)

The chrooted approach reminds me a bit of the S-FTP discussion in v2 with the 3rd party / FTP/SFTP bridge on localhost - it does work, but it would be sooo much better if it was done natively.

Didn't you guys just switch your tools to support Linux instead of Windows only ?

[Craig]

Originally Posted by z00m1n

The chrooted approach reminds me a bit of the S-FTP discussion in v2 with the 3rd party / FTP/SFTP bridge on localhost - it does work, but it would be sooo much better if it was done natively.

Any poor integration is as much the fault of Linux as it is ours. I can comfortably run both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows applications without one being better than the other. I still don't understand why Linux can't handle things just as well.

Originally Posted by z00m1n

Didn't you guys just switch your tools to support Linux instead of Windows only ?

The compiler and libraries we're using for the Linux port only support 32-bit. We're researching alternatives but it's going to be a while before anything viable comes of that. Windows and Delphi are still our primary development platform and any cross-platform strategy has to work with that. We aren't switching languages just to increase our user base by 10%.

[Chris]

I just got Beyond Compare 3.0.2 for Linux to run on 64-bit Kubuntu 8.04.1. It is pretty painful to setup.

Here are the steps:
1. Install 32-bit compatibility library.
Using the graphical package manager, install the package "ia32-libs". You can also install from a terminal using the command "sudo apt-get install ia32-libs".

2. Install 32-bit version of QT3.
(On older versions of Kubuntu/Ubuntu, you may be able to install the
package "ia32-libs-kde", this package isn't available for Kubuntu 8.04.1 AMD64)

Download the 32-bit .deb package for QT3 from http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/i38...t3-mt/download.

Extract the contents of the .deb package.
dpkg-deb --extract libqt3-mt_3.3.8-b-0ubuntu3_i386.deb libqt3-mt

Copy the QT3 libraries to Kubuntu's folder for 32-bit libraries.
sudo cp -R libqt3-mt/usr/lib/* /usr/lib32

3. Install Beyond Compare 3 for Linux deb package.
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture BCompareLinux_080814.deb

4. Run Beyond Compare by typing "bcompare" in a terminal.

[NovL]

Followed steps as posted and this worked.

Here are the steps:

1. Install 32-bit compatibility library ('compat-32bit')
2. Install 32-bit version of QT3 ('qt3')

Had already installed BC3 and got library errors, then installed above packages.

BC started up with no further issues.

Would good if Scooter guys could put this type of info with the product install or make these packages dependencies in the RPM. Windows is still light years ahead in terms of installation process.