A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
there's no client compiler for 64-bit linux. there should be.

JUSTIFICATION :
the server compiler can cost too much, especially for short-lived programs. even long-lived but interactive programs make a bad impression when they take a long time to start up. most users switching to 64-bit Linux from 32-bit Linux have complained that my software "is slower" on their new 64-bit machine. investigation shows that they almost all mean "starts slower". (funnily enough, this seems to make them more sensitive to any slowness while running, even if the application's own logging shows that it's no worse than when run on a 32-bit JVM.)

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
i'd like to have the client compiler ported to 64-bit architectures. (at least Linux. i've yet to hear from a single user of 64-bit Windows, Solaris, or Mac OS. it's getting increasingly common among Linux users, though, and i imagine that the other OSes can't be more than a couple of years behind the trend.)
ACTUAL -
there's no 64-bit client compiler.

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
install the 32-bit JVM on the 64-bit host. this suggests a potential work-around for Sun, too: package the two JVMs together in one tree, and when the launcher does its usual JVM-choosing, let it choose the 32-bit JVM if you ask for -client.