Arch Linux

RajivNair

Member

From: Mumbai,India

Registered: 2006-06-17

Posts: 40

Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

Hi All ,

    Good to see everyone back .. after few months of distro hopping im back home ... got a dilemma though ... in between these few months i got a AMD Athlon X2 system .. which i believe is a 64-bit dual core processor .... would like a suggestion from y'all as to which version should i be going for on archlinux ... 32-bit or 64-bit ... 

Regards,
Rajiv Nair

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

Unless you're transcoding a lot of video you're unlikely to see any performance differences between the two versions; 32bit version in my experience is slightly more efficient when it comes to memory use though.  You can pretty much get the same overall effect with either version, though with 64bit you might have to work a bit more to get certain applications working.  Personally, after running both version in parallel for a while I've settled for the 32bit version.  I will probably migrate to 64bit once it is possible for me to set up my system so it's pure 64bit (without 32bit libs).  I also use Athlon X2 processor, by the way.

LinuxPatsku

Member

Registered: 2007-05-27

Posts: 37

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

Hmm, If you don't need Flash etc, you'll test 64-bit Arch.

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ArchLinux with Xfce4.

RajivNair

Member

From: Mumbai,India

Registered: 2006-06-17

Posts: 40

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

thanks for the quick replies ... .well making flash run was definitely a headache in some other distros as well ... but since arch is i686 optimized .. just wanted to know if using a 64-bit proc to go along with it would hamper any performance of the system ... or would running 32-bit archlinux on my 64-bit proc be as efficient as running on a 32-bit proc ...

Regards,
Rajiv Nair

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

Setting up Flash on 64 bit is easy. Just follow the guidelines in the wiki. Java on the other hand...

Last edited by skottish (2007-12-17 18:43:44)

dmartins

Member

Registered: 2006-09-23

Posts: 360

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

You probably won't notice any performance difference between 32 or 64-bit. Like fwojciec said, transcoding video may be slightly faster on the 64-bit version. On Arch64, flash is pretty easy to set up, but a Java browser plugin is pretty much non-existant (with the open-sourcing of Sun's Java, this is changing). Surprisingly enough, this isn't just a linux problem, 64-bit Windows has no java browser plugin either.

One thing you will miss out on if you run 32-bit is the Folding@Home SMP client, which only runs on 64-bit Linux

Yonk

Member

Registered: 2007-09-07

Posts: 27

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

if you have 3gb (dont know the exact value) or more RAM ... go with 64bit else 32bit

cu3edweb

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2007-10-07

Posts: 291

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

if you have 3gb (dont know the exact value) or more RAM ... go with 64bit else 32bit

I am just curious because I am going to be getting a new laptop but what are the benefits of 64bit with more then 3gb of ram?

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

PAE is not needed - see thread. Not that it's a particularly big benefit.

Yonk

Member

Registered: 2007-09-07

Posts: 27

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

http://www.brianmadden.com/content/arti … eally-mean-

article is for windows but linux has more or less the same problem

test1000

Member

Registered: 2005-04-03

Posts: 834

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

What about gaming in wine? will wine/the game make use of the second processor if i run 32-bit? no, wait wine is only 32 bit isnt it? hmm... well i still can't shake it...

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KISS = "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." - Albert Einstein

broch

Banned

From: L.A. California

Registered: 2006-11-13

Posts: 975

Re: Which version 32-bit or 64-bit ???

enabling PAE makes kernel able to address >3GB. Common mistake is that turning if off does not mean that memory will not be used (by applications). Whatever system (BIOS) see will be used, but apps will not be able to address larger chunks of memory. Now obviously app must be capable of using >3GB efficiently = app (not only kernel) must support PAE (compiled with). I don't think that thunderbird, firefox, openoffice or gimp will ever need to address >3GB.

Another problem is hardware:
cheap stuff (AMD64, resent intel desktop CPUs) has obviously BIOS that mus be prepared to act in mixed mode (whatever you install 32-bit or 64-bit OS), this creates  natural hardware limitations. It is not even about PCI hole or simple fact that you must think how much memory video aperture will take from highmem. A lot of mobos that claim to be >4GB ready are in fact unable to cope with large memory issues efficiently (e.g. some gigabyte, asus).

So even if you switch to 64-bit OS (no himem option in linux kernel as obviously 64-bit kernel by definition can address TB of memory), your limitation is hardware. So if you want to efficiently use large memory you need pure 64-bit hardware (e.g. post Itanium intel which requires emulation software to run 32-bit and this still inefficiently) with pure 64-bit BIOS, 64-bit OS, 64-bit apps optimized for addressing large memory.
This setup is obviously ridiculous on desktop.

Pushing 64-bit CPUs on desktop is currently an easy way to keep market running, without real benefits for user.

Last edited by broch (2007-12-18 14:26:49)