To 64bit or not 64bit

English Open Chat
#1

Shakespear doesn’t have the answers - hey nonny nonny.

I’m currently running a 32bit P4 2.8GHz. I use OS 11.0, Virtualbox to run 32bit WinXP and dual boot to WinXP too.

I might just buy a PC using an AMD Athlon AM2 X2 5200 any minute now.

What problems would I have going to 64bit?
Also are there any benefits? E.g will running 32bit on this CPU be quicker than 64 bit?
Is 64 bit Suse quicker than 32 bit?
Can I run a 32 bit WinXP in Virtualbox on 64 bit Suse?
Can I run Virtualbox on 64bit Suse?

The memory available will be 2GB, but I could upgrade to 8GB (so 64 bit would be required)

Is there any thing else I should take into account?

Cheers

#2

There have been some recent threads with pros and cons so you could have a look at what’s been already said.

#3

64 bit is certainly faster, however the downside to the whole thing is that there are, and this is especially prevalent with Linux, many applications that won’t work.

This situation is being rectified but it’s going to take a while before 64 bit is as usable as 32.

It’s something to try I guess

#4

Oblique if you have no idea what you are talking about then don’t talk at all. There are no problems with 64 bit edition now. If you need some 32 bit only apps you just install 32 bit libraries. Native linux games (mostly 32 bit) work without a problem you just need watch terminal/konsole on what You need and install apprpriate libraries. 64 bit is not faster. Show me some real benchamrks then tell such crap. Although i don’t see any benefits in going to 64 bit i’m running this as i have 8GB memory (32 bit PAE kernel supports that so you might consider staying 32 bit). Just think and read some other threads on that “issue”

#5

Yes, but not the other way around (you can’t run 64 bits guest under a 32 bits host)

Yes, you can even run 64 bits guests since Virtualbox 2.0

I see no benefit in using 32 bits besides maybe saving some diskspace by not having to use a few extra 32 bits libraries?

#6

Another fanboy, this time 64 bit, everyone will tell You to run 64 bit but what they all fail to mention that there are no real benefits since performance hit for using PAE kernel is marginal unless You edit videos or big files (then You can use 64 bit) otherwise stay with 32 bit.

#7

8 more registers, and 1 specifically for efficient PIC code is a real benefit.

AMD64 Subpage
x86-64 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The baseline hardware is much improved over old i386, which is rather old design. Being able to assume hardware features like high resolution timers, may help application developers.

Do we really want to be stuck with a very old lowest common denominator?

PAE introduces extra complications to kernel page table management.
PAE will require use of bounce buffers.

Having 32 bit libraries on disk, is not a reason to stick with 32 bit architecture for most ppl.

> 8GB memory (32 bit PAE kernel supports that so you might
> consider staying 32 bit)

True, but PAE goes into meltdown above that. The kernel ppl, aren’t very keen on PAE.

Dropping PAE support, and running 32 bit, also has marginal performance drawback on a 4 GiB system, as kernel data structures were smaller. Some kernel modules provided as binary for default kernel, were not available with PAE enabled.

PAE is only really needed by a small number of ppl, who have 6 or 8 GiB RAM, and a 32 bit CPU. Above that it failed to deliver.

> I might just buy a PC using an AMD Athlon AM2 X2 5200 any minute now.

I’m using an AMX X2 5600+, 4GiB and it runs very well under 64 bit or 32 bit.

In performance terms, for general desktop, the differences are likely swamped by disk accesses.

The 64 bit arch is cleaner, and 32 bit compatability is excellent, there’s only a slight increase in object code size :

movl $symb, %eax # 5 byte instruction
movq $symb, %rax # 7 byte instruction

fir:~ # cd /mnt/bin
fir:/mnt/bin # ls -l ls
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 97768 Dec 3 11:56 ls
fir:/mnt/bin # ls -l /bin/ls
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 89484 Sep 22 2007 /bin/ls

Most of the time 32 bit, will perform very well as will 64 bit, but some applications and code will like 64 bit very much where 32 bit object is kludgy, so why not use 64 bit?

The download figures for openSUSE showed x86-64 DVD is nearly as popular as the i586 one, and still growing.

#8

Nuff said :slight_smile:

#9

Thanks for all the replies. It does seem clear that going 64bit would be the better way forward as PAE would be an unneccessary complication when it can be avoided by installing 64bit.

Cheers

#10

Yes and you are able to upgrade memory as required.
Also upgrading will be easier as 64 bit is the future until they start with 128 bit :wink:

/Geoff

#11

BenderBendingRodriguez wrote:

> Oblique if you have no idea what you are talking about then don’t talk
> at all. There are no problems with 64 bit edition now

So Java plugins for Firefox work perfectly now? That wasn’t the case a month
or so back.

–
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. E-mail: newsman not newsboy

#12

I wasn’t trying to be misleading or anything about the compatibility, it’s just that was the last I heard about the issue.

However 64-bit does actually crunch numbers faster… That’s the point…

#13

I just reinstalled my mythtv box. It was running 11.0 32bit and now is running 11.1 64bit. I had no real reason to go 64 bit just figured i might eventually want it to support more ram. All apps work fine. I do not use it for running windows it’s strictly mythtv. I’m really liking 11.1 so far.

drew

#14

Personally, unless you have more than 2 GB of RAM, I see no need to use the 64 bit version. There’s not a hair bit of difference between the two.

If you do have more than 2 GB of RAM, definitely go 64 bit.

#15

2Gb and 64 bit openSUSE / Fedora runs very well.

And you can compile the kernel a few mins quicker!

:stuck_out_tongue:

#16

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:36:01 +0000, Oblique wrote:

> 64 bit is certainly faster, however the downside to the whole thing is
> that there are, and this is especially prevalent with Linux, many
> applications that won’t work.

I have run 64-bit 11.0 since I purchased my 64-bit machine, I have yet to
find an application that either (a) won’t run natively as 64-bit, or (b)
I can’t run as 32-bit.

A couple of the apps I run require libraries that aren’t available as a
“-32bit” package, but grabbing the 32-bit (i586) RPMs and extracting the
library files I need solved that in a hurry.

So I don’t know about “prevalent”. I have yet to find an application
that I can’t make work on my 64-bit system.

Jim

#17

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:29:25 +0000, Graham P Davis wrote:

> BenderBendingRodriguez wrote:
>
>> Oblique if you have no idea what you are talking about then don’t talk
>> at all. There are no problems with 64 bit edition now
>
> So Java plugins for Firefox work perfectly now? That wasn’t the case a
> month or so back.

The ones I tend to use seem to work fine with the beta 64-bit Java plugin
from Sun.

Just like the 64-bit Flash plugin beta seems to work fine (though
occasionally has issues with a memory leak of some sort).

Jim

#18

That’s the combination I run as well and it does run well. I’m never been one to listen to advice, not even my own. lol!

I haven’t had any major problems but definitely a few minor ones. Nothing a little reading and want to can’t solve, though.

#19

Graham yes You can run 64bit Java with 64bit Firefox. There is no official release of jdk(jre)6u12 (witch, according to Sun, will contain browser plug-ins), but… there is a very stable development version (I run it, works fine).

You can find it here.

And the tutorial, how to install it on openSUSE is here

Flash plug-in is out there for some time to. Wine works with a couple of 32bit libs.

Plus a lot off support for 64bit users. So have no fear.

#20

I think the question should start to change from “Should I run 64bit?” to “Should I stay with 32bit?” If there is no compelling reason to keep running 32bit, then move on up.

64bit support and development isn’t going to pick up speed if people who have 64bit machines insist on staying with 32bit systems.