SDF will be using both amd64 and alpha architectures for the next several years, and other CPU types may be added as well. Those who have their own compiled binaries in their home directory are advised to make two separate bin directories, one for alpha, one for amd64, and to populate them with programs compiled on the respective architectures. You can then use 'uname -m' to determine the CPU type of your current host when logging in and update your $PATH appropriately.

For example, something as simple as:

case `uname -m` in
 alpha) export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/alpha_bin ;; 
 amd64) export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/amd64_bin ;;
esac