I was making the same mistake for the last 6 years

English Open Chat
1

Hi,

Specs : AMD 64 X 2 5600 +
Ram 2 GB
Nvidia 6150 SE

I assembled this PC on 2008. From day one I installed 64 bit thinking I will get the maximum performance. I didn’t notice any significant performance gain but I still continued using 64Bit but when Gnome 3 got released I saw a major slow down in performance. Same thing happened with KDE. I thought my hardware is no longer capable run these modern DEs and since openSUSE’s XFCE and LXDE spins were discontinued I moved to Manjaro. Someone on an IRC channel suggested that my hardware is enough to run both Gnome and KDE provided I choose 32 Bit. Fact is the idle system load of a 64 Bit distro is much higher in comparison to 32 Bit.
I have installed openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (i586) KDE and its running fine. I wish I had created a thread about this before moving may be someone would have told me this a long time back.

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The only real difference is 64-bit uses more memory. There’s no other measurable difference.

3

Yes, idle system load of the latest KDE or Gnome on a 64 Bit reaches to a point where I can’t multi task with even Firefox and Thunderbird. On this installation (KDE 32 Bit) I am able run FF, Thunderbird, Qbittorrent and VLC.

4

I’m not noticing much difference.

I have a Dell Dimension C521 purchased in 2007. It has Athlon processors, 2G of memory, a Nvidia 6150 LE graphics card.

I originally installed suse 10.1 in 64-bit mode. Everything looked good, except I had no network. I reinstalled 32-bit and had network. I continued using 32-bit installs through opensuse 11.3. I switched to 64-bit for 11.4. I have not been able to notice any difference in performance between 320-bit and 64-bit.

It’s not my main desktop, though it was until 2 years ago. But it still performs well enough that it makes a good second box. I expect to install 64-bit 13.2 next week.

5

May be the memory demands of the then current versions of Gnome or KDE were comparatively less than they are now. Another thing I have learned is that adjusting the swapiness significantly improves system performance. The default value is on the higher side which makes the system to swap even when plenty of ram is available.

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System load = CPU usage.

There is no difference between 32 and 64 as far as loads go.

7

I’m probably a relatively light user, as far as memory demands go.

8

Okay. Can’t locate the edit post link of my previous posts may be its forum policy to restrict modifications after a particular period.

.
I tried switching to lighter apps like Sylpheed, Transmission, Gnome Mplayer but I was never able to find a lightweight browser which can match the security of Firefox / Noscript combination. Adblocking is available under Midori and a very basic script blocking extension but Midori crashes like crazy.

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I use “firefox” with “noscript” for browsing, Amarok for music, claws (which I think is the same as sylpheed) for email, though I mostly do webmail and usually don’t have claws open. But I rarely use a file browser (other than the unix shell from a command prompt).

I agree that nothing matches firefox/noscript.

10

Hmmm.

I haven’t tried 320-bit yet. New processors?:wink:

11

My system is essentially exactly the same as the op’s See my sig, below. I use, and always have since it was new, 64 bit. It runs fine. Idle is <8% avg CPU used, no problems with memory etc.
See my post here: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/501874-I-am-slightly-disappoint?p=2671224#post2671224
I suspect that something else is causing the problems for the OP, although I think that 2 Gb RAM is a bit skinny for today’s use patterns…
If the OP asked on here, someone local to him (India, judging by his avatar) might dig up an old 2Gb stick of DDR2 (? or whatever he needs) to make his machine run like a champ.

12

On 2014-10-30, suse kid <suse_kid@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> I assembled this PC on 2008. From day one I installed 64 bit thinking I
> will get the maximum performance. I didn’t notice any significant
> performance gain but I still continued using 64Bit but when Gnome 3 got
> released
> I saw a major slow down in performance. Same thing happened with KDE. I
> thought my hardware is no longer capable run these modern DEs and since
> openSUSE’s XFCE and LXDE spins were discontinued I moved to Manjaro.

And? Presumably you installed the 64-bit binaries of Manjaro with KDE or GNOME and so how did the performance compare?
And I don’t know why you think openSUSE discontinued XFCE and LXDE, because I’ve very recently installed both.

> Someone on an IRC channel suggested that my hardware is enough to run
> both Gnome and KDE provided I choose 32 Bit. Fact is the idle system
> load of a 64 Bit distro is much higher in comparison to 32 Bit.

Nonsense. What you claim as `fact’ is an anecdote based on your personal experience. I’ve installed SuSE/SUSE/openSUSE
on scores of machines for over a dozen years, I can enlighten you that the 64-bit CPU load is identical to that of a
32-bit system; the CPU loading using 64-bit instructions is in fact much more efficient. I suppose around 2005, there
were one or two broken 64-bit library binaries (around the time of Windows XP 64 bit), but those were software compile
issues that have long been resolved.

I have installed openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (i586) KDE and its running fine.
I wish I had created a thread about this before moving may be someone
would have told me this a long time back.

So what is the main message of your post? My guess is a recommendation to users of 64-bit systems:

  1. If you want KDE/GNOME performance, install 32-bit.
  2. If you are seeing a major slow downs, install 32-bit.
  3. If you want to reduce CPU load, install 32-bit.

If any of these are your intended messages, I’m afraid you’re just wrong. If you have seen favourable differences with
your 32-bit installs, it’s because you haven’t installed/configured your 64-bit system correctly. The only thing you’ve
given as evidence are your specs:

Specs : AMD 64 X 2 5600 +
Ram 2 GB
Nvidia 6150 SE

So did you install swap? If so what size? Did you install kernel firmware? What were your `top’ outputs? Did you compare
different kernels? For that matter did you compare different distros (e.g. you’ve mentioned Manjaro). How did you rule
out issues with your hard drive as to the cause of the slow down, since your machine is quite old and any reinstall on
a faulty drive can appear to speed it up albeit only temporarily.

The issue of performance is a complex. Don’t think for a moment that switching from a 64-bit to a 32-bit install
automatically improves performance. I can think of exotic reasons why a 32-bit install may `mask’ a problem that might
only come to light on a 64-bit system (e.g. bad RAM), but then the issue is the problem itself rather than the use of a
64-bit operating system.

13

LOL. I failed to notice that typo until you pointed it out.

14

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I joined a local group on Facebook which is meant for buying/selling old peripherals and asked if anyone has a 2GB DDR2 to offer. Sadly, the prices they demanded are almost equal to a new 2GB DDR3 module.

Yes, I installed 64 Bit Gnome then KDE and whe that didn’t worked settled with 64 bit LXDE. It took almost 3 mins for Firefox to start and when I tried multitasking with Firefox and any other app like Sylpheed the system hanged completely. This happened several times and each time I had to hard reset the PC. XFCE and LXDE are still available in the repos for installation but there used to be separate ISOs listed on the main website just like the Gnome/KDE live.

If you have more than 4 GB of ram use 64 Bit and if you have less than that choose 32. This is not really a message. Frankly this is what is working for me.

I used my existing swap partition which I had created while installing Manjaro.

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  25.0GB  25.0GB  primary  ext4            boot, type=83
 2      25.0GB  156GB   131GB   primary  ext4            type=83
 3      156GB   160GB   3999MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)  type=82

No, I didn’t install kernel firmware. CPU usage was never really high but I had conky running and with Firefox, Sylpheed and VLC conky showed 93 % ram usage with some swapping. I upgraded the kernel as soon as a new one was available but didn’t notice any difference in performance. I had checked both the / and /home using Gparted from a Parted Magic Live CD. No errors were found. Then I checked using the SMART (forgot the name). The scan took a long time but no errors.

I don’t have 64 BIt installed atm. This is what top prints now.

16

I have an old netbook I put 32bit Lubuntu on. I’ve gone the 64 bit route previously but I saw somewhere as system requirements 32 bit needed 1GB while 64bit suggested 2GB. I figured if there is a need, then go with the 32bit to be safe.

It works alright, but the 1.2 Ghz shows rears its ugly head when initially opening programs.

17

I have a Xn years Latop (2007) HP 6730b with only 2GB RAM had running some *SUSE (SLED10)64 and later openSUSE(KDE) version during the years, latest -13.2RC1.

I just connect to a projektor. Get my slide show running. Present and try to convince (and back it upp) on the large screen showing functions on my LaPTOP

Yes I like to have a SSD +8GB in my old Laptop. But it is working whit a old standard HW.

regards

18

Using KDE 4.14.2 on openSUSE 13.1 64-bit with Firefox 34.0b4, Thunderbird 31.2.0 and VLC streaming music.

System monitor shows 221 processs using 4% CPU (keeps varying of course) and 1.5GB (also varies) of my 4 GB memory on a 64-bit system with no problems.

Some of the time I also have Pan and qBittorent running, both using network resources with no problem.