Sybase Question:

The following was written by the prior maintainer:
Sybase' first forray into 64-bit was with release 11.9.3. I do not know much about that release, but I seem to remember that it was always lagging behind its sister release of 11.9.2.
With ASE 12, Sybase have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions at the same release level. This is a big improvement, since it cuts out some concern that was prevelant with 11.9.3 as to why they were on different numbers. The releases are supposed to be identical in terms of functionality, save the fact that the 64-bit version can address more memory.
So, why not just be done with it and have just the one version? Firstly, I suppose that not everyone who can run Solaris has the capability to run the 64-bit version. There are still a lot of 32-bit Sparc chips around and a lot of people use them. It is also possible to run 32-bit Solaris on a 64-bit machine. In order to be able to run 64-bit Sybase you will have to be running 64-bit Solaris.
If you have a 64-bit environment, you still need to choose between which Sybase version to run. If you have more than 4G bytes of memory on your machine and you would like Sybase to take advantage of it, then the 64-bit version is for you. If not, then the word on the street, and from Sybase themselves, is that in identical environments, the 32-bit version runs slightly faster. I have heard a couple of explanations as to why this is so, but nothing that I find 100% convincing.