Arch 64

nirvanix · 2005-12-04 14:50:50

Hi Archies,

This may be a silly question with an obvious answer, but here goes - if I install Arch 64 linux, do all of the applications have to be the 64 bit versions as well? Or for example, could I run a 32 bit version of Open Office on this setup?

thanks.

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-04 14:52:28

If you were using 32-bit compatibility mode, yes. If not, or if you were using something other than x86-64 (e.g. PPC64), no.

nirvanix · 2005-12-04 16:01:06

Thanks for your reply Gullible Jones. Do you know if the compatibility mode is something I have to compile into a kernel, or is this on with the default kernel?

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-04 16:07:00

Compatibility mode should be a BIOS option. It's part of the CPU's functionality.

nirvanix · 2005-12-04 20:33:15

Ok, thanks. I suspect putting the BIOS in this mode will slow the performance down to 32 bit levels?

Gullible Jones · 2005-12-04 20:59:36

Dunno.

Lone_Wolf · 2005-12-04 21:45:18

Depends what you mean by slowing the performance down.

The AMD 64 bit processors are also the fastest 32 bit processors available.
So while it might be slower than 64-bit apps, it still is very fast.

syamajala · 2005-12-05 01:58:54

arch64 is completely 64bit. if you want 32bit compatibility then you need to setup a 32bit chroot. there are people working on OO2 for arch64...

Mr Green · 2005-12-05 07:39:21

OO2 will not work under 64 under 2.0.2 (from what I have read)

As far as I know no distro has OO2 running in 64

Unless you know different ;-)

AndyRTR · 2005-12-05 11:10:51

Mr Green wrote:

OO2 will not work under 64 under 2.0.2 (from what I have read)
As far as I know no distro has OO2 running in 64
Unless you know different ;-)

From what I´ve found in the Mandriva and Fedora SPEC and and Gentoo ebuild they all build nativ 64bit OOo packages. There are some patches needed to get it compile. As soon as OOo compiles on arch 32Bit I´ll switch to arch64 to get it working there.

AndyRTR

AndyRTR · 2005-12-05 12:55:50

For further reading:

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik … C_EM64T%29

Mr Green · 2005-12-05 14:11:08

Thanks for that ;-) ....

jondkent · 2005-12-06 10:40:56

Hi,

Although not Arch I ran Ubuntu 64 for a little bit when I built my new AMD64 PC. Found it a bit of a pain having to have a chroot environment and it just felt clunky, so I install normal Arch on it instead and it flys. Kinda felt that true 64 is a way off and as there is no performance advantage I'm happily sticking to 32 bit for the moment.

Jon

Mr Green · 2005-12-06 14:16:14

Well if you a spare partiton then why not help out ;-)

Dusty · 2005-12-06 16:00:14

jondkent wrote:

and as there is no performance advantage

Hey, I've heard people say this, but I have no idea if it is true. I understood that the hardware emulation of a 32 bit environment did actually have a performance hit.

When I log into Arch64, it seems like it takes longer for my apps to load from the hard disk, and yet once they are in memory, the whole system seems to be a bit snappier. Possibly this is just a result of some kernel option Seshu has changed though. Does anybody have any concrete evidence saying whether 64 bit is any faster than 32 bit, in general or specific to arch?

Dusty

jondkent · 2005-12-06 20:23:38

Hiya,

The really shouldn't be much, if any improvement. All 64 bit gives you is a bigger address space which is good for massive databases and alike, but for normal apps there should be little improvement.

Jon

B15HOP · 2005-12-28 16:12:59

I thought 64bit means that 64bits of information can be processed at once? Wouldnt that make a theoretical 2x speed improvement?

nirvanix · 2005-12-28 22:35:26

In theory, I suppose. Not everything will speed up on your computer though. The buses and hardware will not speed up so overall performance gain is less.
For certain applications that are compiled as 64 bit apps and that can make use of the extra bits, there should be a noticable improvement

Arch Linux

#1 2005-12-04 14:50:50

Arch 64

#2 2005-12-04 14:52:28

Re: Arch 64

#3 2005-12-04 16:01:06

Re: Arch 64

#4 2005-12-04 16:07:00

Re: Arch 64

#5 2005-12-04 20:33:15

Re: Arch 64

#6 2005-12-04 20:59:36

Re: Arch 64

#7 2005-12-04 21:45:18

Re: Arch 64

#8 2005-12-05 01:58:54

Re: Arch 64

#9 2005-12-05 07:39:21

Re: Arch 64

#10 2005-12-05 11:10:51

Re: Arch 64

#11 2005-12-05 12:55:50

Re: Arch 64

#12 2005-12-05 14:11:08

Re: Arch 64

#13 2005-12-06 10:40:56

Re: Arch 64

#14 2005-12-06 14:16:14

Re: Arch 64

#15 2005-12-06 16:00:14

Re: Arch 64

#16 2005-12-06 20:23:38

Re: Arch 64

#17 2005-12-28 16:12:59

Re: Arch 64

#18 2005-12-28 22:35:26

Re: Arch 64

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