Most open source developers are using IA32 unix-like OSes (read: fancy way of saying Linux and *BSD). Many of those are dual booting in to Windows for one reason or another. They want to use the same apps on Windows, so the demand for ports is strong.
Most other platforms don't have this situation. PPC Linux and the BSD base of OS X brings some of this to the Mac platform, but with a much smaller impact.
I'm damn sure that all the PCs at my school automatically check Windows Update and download the updates. They ask us if we want to install, but that can be disabled.
I was doing a similar price comparo, so I started with the Dual 2GHz G5, put in 1GB of RAM, 500GB of HD, the Radeon 9800, and removed the modem.
Summary
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
1GB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x512
2x250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Subtotal $4,045.00
I then configured an all-out G5 Fighter using prices from pricewatch.
This is what I came up with, part by part
Case: Lian Li PC-6070 ($153) This all-aluminum case has great looks as well as front panel USB2.0 ports. It is as similar to the G5's case as I could find.
Processors: 2x AMD Opteron 246 ($799 each) 2GHz, 64 bit...as close to equal as possible
Mobo: Rioworks HDAMB ($415) Being the only dual Opteron board with AGP, this was a given. It also included onboard Gigabit LAN, SATA, USB2.0, 1394, and 5.1 surround.
RAM: 2x Samsung DDR400 512MB ($85 each) Even though the Opterons only use DDR333, this was supposed to be as even as possible, and for $10 extra, why not up to DDR400 for future-proofing
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB ($318) Should be the exact same card
Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-A06 ($166) The SuperDrive is AFAIK this same drive or an earlier revision
Hard Drives: 2x Western Digital WD2500JD ($308 each) Should be the same
PSU: Sparkle Power 460 ($81) 460w PSU with the EPS12V connectors needed by the motherboard
Mouse: Logitech MX500 ($32) The mouse is tough to make even, with no 1 button mice for PCs, so I chose one of the best mice (mouses?) available today.
Keyboard: Logitech Elite ($8) This is a nice keyboard, far better than Apple's keyboard.
OS: SuSE Linux Enterprise Server AMD64 ($448) Since you have to buy MacOS with the Apple, I included the only fully tested distribution quality OS for AMD64. This would likely be left off and most people would just recompile what they have for 64 bit use.
In total, with shipping, here are the costs for the AMD system: With SuSE: $4064.13 W/out OS : $3616.13
Bringing back the G5, that was $4045. The AMD64 system basically has the same parts, but comes up $428.87
Basically, if you value the time that it would take to assemble the above system and install/configure the OS (basically doing a Linux From Scratch to compile everything for AMD64) at more than the difference, the G5 is likely a better choice. Either one has all the software compatibility you could want. The G5 will run all of your old MacOS (or PPC Linux) apps, and the AMD64 system will run any old x86 app.
My opinion is that the pricing is even enough to negate that from the consideration.
think about it...what is the primary reason to run samba?
give up? it's integration in to a Windows network. there are other network share protocols that work on basically every other OS, and would be the first choice for networks containing only those OSes (i.e. NFS for *nix nets, Appleshare for Mac nets)
Most people who run samba will simply be wanting to access the data the same way they would on their windows box. using the same commands will make it simpler on them.
Usually when the subject of windows imitation is brought up, I don't like it, but this is one situation where it is very useful.
Lets say you have a WinXP box that you need to get a PDF off of and on to a few of your systems. Which is easier:
1. Go to Win2k box, run "net use * \\WinXPBox\C$" Go to Linux box, run "smbmount blah blah..." (sorry i havent used smbmount in forever) Go to OS X box, mount it however that does it
or
2. On all boxen, run "net use [chosen mount point] \\WinXPBox\C$"
obviously using the same command everywhere simplifies things.
Windows did SMB first, and the point of SAMBA is to duplicate the SMB services that Windows offers, so logically unless Microsoft did something so horribly wrong that most users would prefer doing things a different way, make the command identical.
WinCE may have I/O protection, but that is not relevant. The Xbox runs a slimmed down version of the Windows 2000 Kernel with only the features that are necessary for DX and network functionality. AFAIK the kernel is stored in the BIOS, thus limiting it to 256k, so it is very slim. Note that 1.0-1.2 Xboxes had 1024k ROM chips, but just mirrored the BIOS 4 times. 1.3 Xboxes removed this and only have a 256k chip to prevent flashing the onboard chip with a new, larger BIOS.
I would like to respond to the comments posted, but first I need to mention an important detail: Yesterday (day of the parent post), I had my wisdom teeth pulled, and I was (and I still am) on strong painkilers.
Having said that, here are my replies.
To the poster of the god sig: OK. whatever. in my less thinking state (see above) that sig triggered the strong anti-religious views I have. I mistakenly believed that you intended to "advertize" your religion with your sig. That brought me in to a creation vs. evolution mindset, leading to the remainder of my post.
To all: I still believe in the idea that modern medicine has stunted and nearly eliminated the survival of the fittest element of evolution. Yes at it's core my suggestion is inhumane in some ways and similar to Hitler's tactics, and as such can likely never be implemented in a real society. In the current state of the world, I shudder to think what could happen if this was implemented. It was just a point that I wanted to get out and see the reactions.
Thanks to the responding posters for not flaming me to hell.
You pointed out Explore2FS, but you forgot to mention its sister program, ext2ifs.
The differences between these programs is that while Explore2FS is standalone, it supports read/write access from all Win32 versions and is generally more reliable (IMO). ext2ifs is read only (for now), but it is an IFS, and as such it properly interfaces with Windows (NT/2K/XP/2K3/LH) and is treated the same as any hard drive. I use this system on my desktop, and my 4 EXT3 partitions from my Mandrake 9 install are readable as drive letters by WinXP.
The ext2ifs application uses ntifs.h, which is available along with links to many NT (and one 9x) IFS projects here
ntifs.h is GPLed for all you hackers with enough time on your hands to write more FS drivers.
Hell No! - I believe in evolution and science, both of which religion goes against.
This is my suggestion for assisting evoultion:
4. Check DNA for severe flaws (i.e. known genetic diseases) and if possible fix these flaws, failing back to sterilizing the user to prevent the spread of flawed DNA.
Before you flame the hell outta me, understand my logic.
Before modern medicine, we had a thing called natural selection.(a.k.a. evolution) Civilized societies have all but eliminated that. With a chip like I describe being implanted, the flukes of nature that we can work around will be fixed, the others will be ensured to no pass down their defective DNA.
Yes this means that a few unlucky genetic mixups won't be able to have kids. It's a sacrifice of a few for the good of many.
If anyone would like to have a civilised discussion about this, my email and IM names are in my profile. If you would like to flame this idea, send your mail to/dev/null on the nearest convienent *nix system.
Longhorn = Palladium (or whatever it's called now) Palladium = Forced DRM (i.e. your PC will refuse to run DeCSS)
This seems like DMCA-OS to me.
Due to ignorance in general users and politicians, combined with media companies having deep pockets, soon a new computer will be unable to decrypt your digital media unless some BSA/MPAA/RIAA Exec says it can.
Mr. Valenti: Just as the VCR didn't doom the movie industry, neither will digital technology, unless you let it. Adapt to the times. Henry Ford nearly drove his business in to the ground by holding on to the Model T as his only product for too long. He was afraid of change. The content industries are doing the same thing. They don't know how to use this new technology, and this scares them. In their panic, they are doing everything they can to extend the life of..........
If you don't know for sure what you mean, how should the rest of us?
In seriousness, you make a good point, but as I see it, the main use for these tools is for a homeowner to be able to rough out their current house and then make a change, using the 3D view to see how it looks. It's cheap, reasonably fast, and somewhat easy.
Yes a pro with a pencil will probably be as fast as or faster than even a pro with a PC, but the same does not hold true for a n00b. They will make constant use of that great feature of a PC, the undo button.
I say this almost any time the DMCA comes up, and it's always the same...
Any kind of encryption that is usable in cheap set-top boxes (read: simple enough) can be cracked by the real pirates easily. All that these encryption systems do is make fair use a real pain in the ass.
-END POST CONTENT- -BEGIN TAUNT TO DTV-
Hey DirecTV! I have 3 DTV recievers and a smart card device! Go ahead, sue me you assholes. I use the smart card device (which came built in to my Acer C100 Tablet PC) for authentication and security in my network. I am watching History Channel on DTV right now, and there is nothing you can do about it. All 3 recievers are paid for and I currently subscribe to Total Choice w/ Local Channels and HDTV (not the new Sat-C pack, just HDNET).
But, as you seem to believe that legit users of smart cards are criminals, go ahead and sue me.
DTV: Email me using the address listed above if ya want to sue...;)
Acidus (yes the same Acidus from the Blackboard stuff) had written a paper on XM Radio. It is available here.
He had some thoughts on the format and quality of XM streams.
=Compression=
The number of theories of the compression schemes that XM uses is around the number of Grassy Knoll theories. MP2, MP3, AMBE, AAC, the list goes on and on. A few things are known. XM Radio had a contract with Digital Voice Systems, Inc to use their AMBE (Advanced Multi-Band Excitation) speech compression algorithm. The XM Radio Customer Agreement states that the AMBE technology in their product is copyrighted and licensed for their use. That makes it safe to say that AMBE is used at least in part to compress the speech-only channels. Since the STA450 has a built in EPAC decoder, it is safe to assume that at least a bulk of the music is encoded with this algorithm. This conforms to a claim made by an XM engineer that their compression technology is similar to Mpeg-4.
I know what it is! Someone got an old piece of hardware to run some other OS and no one posted a link! We can't slashdot the playstation without a link!
The Xbox has two key based systems. One of these is the software key, which as the other poster mentioned is 2048 bit (basically uncrackable) The software key is used to sign the.xbe (XBoxExecutable) files. Modchips bypass this "feature"
The hardware security (which is more relevant to this topic as it involves the hard drive) utilizes a little known feature in the ATA command set where a password must be sent to the hard drive before it will allow data to be accessed. This does NOT involve encryption, it is merely the hard drive refusing to access the data. This password is easy to extract (with the right tools), as shown here on the Xbox-Linux homepage.
If you happen to have a laptop, it is likely that it supports this ability in the BIOS. Most desktops will need an extra application, thus not allowing you to place your OS on the protected disk. (although you should never put the OS near important data anyways...)
You answered your own question. Cheap hosters don't care for enterprise level features. Neither do many developers. MySQL provides exactly what *most* people want. It is faster than most other DBMS apps at the basic functions that are uszed 90% of the time.
If you need the advanced features that MySQL doesn't have (a list that is getting shorter by the version), you likely aren't looking in to cheap hosting.
By 64-bit OS and 64-bit software I an referring to applications that, as currently compiled, can take advantage of 64-bit processors. PAE and similar technologies that bring 64-bit functionality to 32-bit systems are like using superglue where you need a special adhesive (sorry for the crappy analogy....i'm tired). It may work, but it's not the right way to solve the problem.
Handling 64-bit data does not make software 64 bit. I can write a piece of code that can work with 512-bit data and run it on Win3.1 using a 486 chip (16-bit OS, 32-bit processor). It takes complicated code that slows down the execution dramatically. Fortunately you don't have to deal with that unless you use assembly or have mad skillz and write in machine code. For higher level languages, the compiler handles the hard stuff.
The fast user switching is a trimmed back version of terminal services. If you load VNC as a service, it runs fine and displays the welcome screen. I have not tried to fast user switch (it's disabled on my machines).
I would assume that those who get black screens are running the VNC server as a user process instead of a service. From my experience, when you fast user switch, Windows simply creates a new user session similar to terminal services, but unlike TS, it stops rendering the old session, as only one session can be run at a time (or one session and one logon screen using remote desktop) and this saves memory and processor power. VNC keeps trying to grab frames from the old session, which is not being rendered anymore, thus the black screen.
A 64-bit OS is still 64-bit software. It cannot run on a 32-bit processor. I challenge you to run any 64-bit OS on your x86 PC or 32-bit Mac (whichever it may be) without emulation. A 64-bit OS can run 32-bit apps via one of 3 methods: 1. Emulation in the OS (I believe this is how PPC macs run 68k apps) 2. Emulation in the hardware (IA-64 does this to run x86) 3. Hardware backwards compatibility (x86-64 supports x86 32-bit apps)
It is possible to run 64 bit apps on a 32 bit OS only via emulation. This is how developers tested apps for x86-64, using an emulator released by AMD (AFAIK) running on linux. Ths allowed them to run 64-bit Linux on top of 32-bit linux, then run their test apps on that.
This process is tricky and generally very slow. That is why emulators for older systems (32 bit or less) generally run easily on slower PCs, but 64-bit and above (a.k.a. N64, DC, PS2, and x86-64) require fast processors and are generally hard to write.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the problem with all cross-platform apps.
Most open source developers are using IA32 unix-like OSes (read: fancy way of saying Linux and *BSD). Many of those are dual booting in to Windows for one reason or another. They want to use the same apps on Windows, so the demand for ports is strong.
Most other platforms don't have this situation. PPC Linux and the BSD base of OS X brings some of this to the Mac platform, but with a much smaller impact.
*d'oh*
oh well...that's what my mind jumped to...
I did FTFA article...
;)
FTFA?
Hmm...
RFTA = Read The Fucking Article...
FTFA = Fuck The Fucking Article?
LOL i know it was just a typo, but it's still funny, especially with a subject of "7 inches long!"
Welcome to /.
You must be new here.
We support any software that is free as in either speech or beer, preferably both (mmm....free beer....)
Good Karma = Compensation
Codecs and the specs that go with them need to be free.
I was almost giving up on /.
It's been days since we had an article about something that is really cool but useless for all practical tasks
One word for ya...Trillian
Not Free Software, but my fave IM app nonetheless
Isn't there ALREADY a client that does this?
I'm damn sure that all the PCs at my school automatically check Windows Update and download the updates. They ask us if we want to install, but that can be disabled.
Not a G5, but here's an Athlon64 Laptop
I have also seen UltraSPARC laptops on pricewatch a few months ago
64 bit laptops exist, just not in as large amounts as we will see when the G5 Pbook comes out
I then configured an all-out G5 Fighter using prices from pricewatch.
This is what I came up with, part by part
Case: Lian Li PC-6070 ($153)
This all-aluminum case has great looks as well as front panel USB2.0 ports. It is as similar to the G5's case as I could find.
Processors: 2x AMD Opteron 246 ($799 each)
2GHz, 64 bit...as close to equal as possible
Mobo: Rioworks HDAMB ($415)
Being the only dual Opteron board with AGP, this was a given. It also included onboard Gigabit LAN, SATA, USB2.0, 1394, and 5.1 surround.
RAM: 2x Samsung DDR400 512MB ($85 each)
Even though the Opterons only use DDR333, this was supposed to be as even as possible, and for $10 extra, why not up to DDR400 for future-proofing
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB ($318)
Should be the exact same card
Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-A06 ($166)
The SuperDrive is AFAIK this same drive or an earlier revision
Hard Drives: 2x Western Digital WD2500JD ($308 each)
Should be the same
PSU: Sparkle Power 460 ($81)
460w PSU with the EPS12V connectors needed by the motherboard
Mouse: Logitech MX500 ($32)
The mouse is tough to make even, with no 1 button mice for PCs, so I chose one of the best mice (mouses?) available today.
Keyboard: Logitech Elite ($8)
This is a nice keyboard, far better than Apple's keyboard.
OS: SuSE Linux Enterprise Server AMD64 ($448)
Since you have to buy MacOS with the Apple, I included the only fully tested distribution quality OS for AMD64. This would likely be left off and most people would just recompile what they have for 64 bit use.
In total, with shipping, here are the costs for the AMD system:
With SuSE: $4064.13
W/out OS : $3616.13
Bringing back the G5, that was $4045.
The AMD64 system basically has the same parts, but comes up $428.87
Basically, if you value the time that it would take to assemble the above system and install/configure the OS (basically doing a Linux From Scratch to compile everything for AMD64) at more than the difference, the G5 is likely a better choice. Either one has all the software compatibility you could want. The G5 will run all of your old MacOS (or PPC Linux) apps, and the AMD64 system will run any old x86 app.
My opinion is that the pricing is even enough to negate that from the consideration.
Kudos to Apple.
think about it...what is the primary reason to run samba?
give up? it's integration in to a Windows network. there are other network share protocols that work on basically every other OS, and would be the first choice for networks containing only those OSes (i.e. NFS for *nix nets, Appleshare for Mac nets)
Most people who run samba will simply be wanting to access the data the same way they would on their windows box. using the same commands will make it simpler on them.
Usually when the subject of windows imitation is brought up, I don't like it, but this is one situation where it is very useful.
Lets say you have a WinXP box that you need to get a PDF off of and on to a few of your systems. Which is easier:
1.
Go to Win2k box, run "net use * \\WinXPBox\C$"
Go to Linux box, run "smbmount blah blah..." (sorry i havent used smbmount in forever)
Go to OS X box, mount it however that does it
or
2.
On all boxen, run "net use [chosen mount point] \\WinXPBox\C$"
obviously using the same command everywhere simplifies things.
Windows did SMB first, and the point of SAMBA is to duplicate the SMB services that Windows offers, so logically unless Microsoft did something so horribly wrong that most users would prefer doing things a different way, make the command identical.
and I thought Windows CE enforced IO protection.
WinCE may have I/O protection, but that is not relevant. The Xbox runs a slimmed down version of the Windows 2000 Kernel with only the features that are necessary for DX and network functionality. AFAIK the kernel is stored in the BIOS, thus limiting it to 256k, so it is very slim.
Note that 1.0-1.2 Xboxes had 1024k ROM chips, but just mirrored the BIOS 4 times. 1.3 Xboxes removed this and only have a 256k chip to prevent flashing the onboard chip with a new, larger BIOS.
I would like to respond to the comments posted, but first I need to mention an important detail:
Yesterday (day of the parent post), I had my wisdom teeth pulled, and I was (and I still am) on strong painkilers.
Having said that, here are my replies.
To the poster of the god sig:
OK. whatever. in my less thinking state (see above) that sig triggered the strong anti-religious views I have. I mistakenly believed that you intended to "advertize" your religion with your sig. That brought me in to a creation vs. evolution mindset, leading to the remainder of my post.
To all:
I still believe in the idea that modern medicine has stunted and nearly eliminated the survival of the fittest element of evolution. Yes at it's core my suggestion is inhumane in some ways and similar to Hitler's tactics, and as such can likely never be implemented in a real society. In the current state of the world, I shudder to think what could happen if this was implemented. It was just a point that I wanted to get out and see the reactions.
Thanks to the responding posters for not flaming me to hell.
You pointed out Explore2FS, but you forgot to mention its sister program, ext2ifs.
The differences between these programs is that while Explore2FS is standalone, it supports read/write access from all Win32 versions and is generally more reliable (IMO).
ext2ifs is read only (for now), but it is an IFS, and as such it properly interfaces with Windows (NT/2K/XP/2K3/LH) and is treated the same as any hard drive. I use this system on my desktop, and my 4 EXT3 partitions from my Mandrake 9 install are readable as drive letters by WinXP.
The ext2ifs application uses ntifs.h, which is available along with links to many NT (and one 9x) IFS projects here
ntifs.h is GPLed for all you hackers with enough time on your hands to write more FS drivers.
Were you sure to say "Under God"?
/dev/null on the nearest convienent *nix system.
Hell No! - I believe in evolution and science, both of which religion goes against.
This is my suggestion for assisting evoultion:
4. Check DNA for severe flaws (i.e. known genetic diseases) and if possible fix these flaws, failing back to sterilizing the user to prevent the spread of flawed DNA.
Before you flame the hell outta me, understand my logic.
Before modern medicine, we had a thing called natural selection.(a.k.a. evolution) Civilized societies have all but eliminated that. With a chip like I describe being implanted, the flukes of nature that we can work around will be fixed, the others will be ensured to no pass down their defective DNA.
Yes this means that a few unlucky genetic mixups won't be able to have kids. It's a sacrifice of a few for the good of many.
If anyone would like to have a civilised discussion about this, my email and IM names are in my profile. If you would like to flame this idea, send your mail to
Oh...you mean Longhorn, right?
Longhorn = Palladium (or whatever it's called now)
Palladium = Forced DRM (i.e. your PC will refuse to run DeCSS)
This seems like DMCA-OS to me.
Due to ignorance in general users and politicians, combined with media companies having deep pockets, soon a new computer will be unable to decrypt your digital media unless some BSA/MPAA/RIAA Exec says it can.
Mr. Valenti: Just as the VCR didn't doom the movie industry, neither will digital technology, unless you let it. Adapt to the times.
Henry Ford nearly drove his business in to the ground by holding on to the Model T as his only product for too long. He was afraid of change. The content industries are doing the same thing. They don't know how to use this new technology, and this scares them. In their panic, they are doing everything they can to extend the life of..........
!!!!
Wow I just went off on a tangent.......
The point of my post is at the top.
I think my point...
If you don't know for sure what you mean, how should the rest of us?
In seriousness, you make a good point, but as I see it, the main use for these tools is for a homeowner to be able to rough out their current house and then make a change, using the 3D view to see how it looks. It's cheap, reasonably fast, and somewhat easy.
Yes a pro with a pencil will probably be as fast as or faster than even a pro with a PC, but the same does not hold true for a n00b. They will make constant use of that great feature of a PC, the undo button.
I say this almost any time the DMCA comes up, and it's always the same...
;)
Any kind of encryption that is usable in cheap set-top boxes (read: simple enough) can be cracked by the real pirates easily. All that these encryption systems do is make fair use a real pain in the ass.
-END POST CONTENT-
-BEGIN TAUNT TO DTV-
Hey DirecTV! I have 3 DTV recievers and a smart card device! Go ahead, sue me you assholes. I use the smart card device (which came built in to my Acer C100 Tablet PC) for authentication and security in my network. I am watching History Channel on DTV right now, and there is nothing you can do about it. All 3 recievers are paid for and I currently subscribe to Total Choice w/ Local Channels and HDTV (not the new Sat-C pack, just HDNET).
But, as you seem to believe that legit users of smart cards are criminals, go ahead and sue me.
DTV: Email me using the address listed above if ya want to sue...
Try me! I'm ready with a defamation countersuit!
He had some thoughts on the format and quality of XM streams.
"Sounds like a lot of sterile geeks in the desert now."
As if they were getting any to begin with.....
Sorry..it had to be said...;)
Hmm.....something is not right.......
I know what it is! Someone got an old piece of hardware to run some other OS and no one posted a link! We can't slashdot the playstation without a link!
Damn i'm bored.....
The Xbox has two key based systems. One of these is the software key, which as the other poster mentioned is 2048 bit (basically uncrackable) .xbe (XBoxExecutable) files. Modchips bypass this "feature"
The software key is used to sign the
The hardware security (which is more relevant to this topic as it involves the hard drive) utilizes a little known feature in the ATA command set where a password must be sent to the hard drive before it will allow data to be accessed. This does NOT involve encryption, it is merely the hard drive refusing to access the data. This password is easy to extract (with the right tools), as shown here on the Xbox-Linux homepage.
If you happen to have a laptop, it is likely that it supports this ability in the BIOS. Most desktops will need an extra application, thus not allowing you to place your OS on the protected disk. (although you should never put the OS near important data anyways...)
Hope that clears things up for ya..
You answered your own question. Cheap hosters don't care for enterprise level features. Neither do many developers. MySQL provides exactly what *most* people want. It is faster than most other DBMS apps at the basic functions that are uszed 90% of the time.
If you need the advanced features that MySQL doesn't have (a list that is getting shorter by the version), you likely aren't looking in to cheap hosting.
By 64-bit OS and 64-bit software I an referring to applications that, as currently compiled, can take advantage of 64-bit processors. PAE and similar technologies that bring 64-bit functionality to 32-bit systems are like using superglue where you need a special adhesive (sorry for the crappy analogy....i'm tired). It may work, but it's not the right way to solve the problem. Handling 64-bit data does not make software 64 bit. I can write a piece of code that can work with 512-bit data and run it on Win3.1 using a 486 chip (16-bit OS, 32-bit processor). It takes complicated code that slows down the execution dramatically. Fortunately you don't have to deal with that unless you use assembly or have mad skillz and write in machine code. For higher level languages, the compiler handles the hard stuff.
The fast user switching is a trimmed back version of terminal services. If you load VNC as a service, it runs fine and displays the welcome screen. I have not tried to fast user switch (it's disabled on my machines).
I would assume that those who get black screens are running the VNC server as a user process instead of a service. From my experience, when you fast user switch, Windows simply creates a new user session similar to terminal services, but unlike TS, it stops rendering the old session, as only one session can be run at a time (or one session and one logon screen using remote desktop) and this saves memory and processor power. VNC keeps trying to grab frames from the old session, which is not being rendered anymore, thus the black screen.
A 64-bit OS is still 64-bit software. It cannot run on a 32-bit processor. I challenge you to run any 64-bit OS on your x86 PC or 32-bit Mac (whichever it may be) without emulation.
A 64-bit OS can run 32-bit apps via one of 3 methods:
1. Emulation in the OS (I believe this is how PPC macs run 68k apps)
2. Emulation in the hardware (IA-64 does this to run x86)
3. Hardware backwards compatibility (x86-64 supports x86 32-bit apps)
It is possible to run 64 bit apps on a 32 bit OS only via emulation. This is how developers tested apps for x86-64, using an emulator released by AMD (AFAIK) running on linux. Ths allowed them to run 64-bit Linux on top of 32-bit linux, then run their test apps on that.
This process is tricky and generally very slow. That is why emulators for older systems (32 bit or less) generally run easily on slower PCs, but 64-bit and above (a.k.a. N64, DC, PS2, and x86-64) require fast processors and are generally hard to write.