64-bit Linux and 32-bit apps

[Red Squirrel]

If I get a 64-bit Linux distro (have not research on one yet) can I still run 32-bit apps fine? I'll be upgrading my server to a 64-bit box eventually so everything that I can get as 64-bit I will, but I'm sure some things I wont be able to, so I'm just wondering if I'll run into any problems.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Might be a better post for the *nix Software forum.

 

[smthmlk]

Depends on the distro. Fedora is about the only I've personally used that doesn't fall on its face in this regard and require chroots or exotic configure arguments, though at the expense of having two copies of a lot of rpms installed (one x86_64, the other i386; and you can't get around this completely: even in a chroot approach, you still have some duplicate libs and such, however only the ones you need, usually, while fedora just installs a boat load of i386 rpms on you by default).

It "just works" as they say, and I suppose that's all the end user tends to care about.