Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-08 Thread Stefan Monnier
 So I installed a system where / and /boot are not on raid and low and behold
 grub seemed to successfully install the boot sector and I could boot
 the disks. 

Making the /boot partition on a RAID is generally not possible with GRUB
(don't know about LILO).  It supposedly can be done if the RAID is just an
MD mirror but I remember there being some caveats.  So I wouldn't be
surprised if the installer doesn't get it right.

 However I now hit the next problem = the installer somehow thought my drives
 were /dev/sde and /dev/sdf  (rather than /dev/sda and /dev/sdb that they
 originally were) so created /etc/fstab, and the grub menu.lst entries
 refering to these drives.  However when booting the new system it expected
 /dev/sda and /dev/sdb and so root failed to mount.  I had to go back into
 the installer and manually edit files in the target system to make it work. 

My /etc/fstab doesn't use the /dev/sd* names: all my partitions are either
under LVM (and hence have the names I chose to give them) or are labelled so
that I can use /dev/disk/by-label/*.

In Grub I always use hd0.


Stefan


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-06 Thread Alan Chandler

On 8/4/07, Alan Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian
unstable).  It has 1GB of memory 

I am wondering two things 


a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
- Is it faster?


I am only responding to this particular message in the thread because my 
computer is still not fully operational and this is the only way (at the 
moment) to comment on this process. 

The whole process has been a nightmare - and not really anything to do with 
64 bit architecture - although I haven't yet got to the point of finding out 
how to run flash in IceWeasel and Konqueror 

I had a raid 1 setup with a 32M /boot partition, a 4G / partition and a 
large LVM on raid 1 partition for the rest (except swap - which takes equal 
space on my two drives).  The drives are SATA - originally on /dev/sda and 
/dev/sdb 

I used the debian netinst disk from this weeks lenny. 

Firstly I wanted to increase /boot from 32M to 100M because I kept getting 
disk full on upgrades. So in the installer I deleted the /boot and swap 
partitions and recreated them. 

For reasons I don't understand - although the old raid devices had both 
/dev/md[12] and /dev/md/[12] entries the new boot only had a /dev/md3 entry. 

However the installation seem to go well until it ran grub to install the 
boot sector.  Thie appeared to work.  However, as soon as I tried 
rebooting this new system the BIOS told me it couldn't find a boot disk. 

Everywhere I searched on the net, there is plenty of people who claim it 
does work - and with examples of what to do.  I tried them all - but none 
worked.  I even tried lilo - but I couldn't get that to work either. 

After much frustration I decided to just try installing the new system 
without raid on root and boot partitions.  This is where the problem with 
the /dev/md3 entry wouldn't work because the partitioner failed to allow me 
to delete this device.  Again after much frustration I created a symlink  
/dev/md/3 to /dev/md3 and was able to make it work. 

So I installed a system where / and /boot are not on raid and low and behold 
grub seemed to successfully install the boot sector and I could boot the 
disks. 

However I now hit the next problem = the installer somehow thought my drives 
were /dev/sde and /dev/sdf  (rather than /dev/sda and /dev/sdb that they 
originally were) so created /etc/fstab, and the grub menu.lst entries 
refering to these drives.  However when booting the new system it expected 
/dev/sda and /dev/sdb and so root failed to mount.  I had to go back into 
the installer and manually edit files in the target system to make it work. 

I have been able to go back to raid - by using mdadm to create a raid 1 
array with a missing entry and /dev/sdb[13] as the component devices.  I 
mounted these as /dev/md1 and /dev/md3 and rsync'ed the contents of / 
(/dev/sda3) and /boot (dev/sda1) across to them.  Editing in fstab and 
grub's menu.lst to reflect the change of devices and a reboot I had a system 
running on raid.  Finally repartitioned /dev/sda[13] as raid autodetect 
partitions and added them into the existing arrays as the second device. 

I did make a big mistake at this point and forgot to 


a) Update /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf with the raid array details
b) Run update-initramfs 

So on next reboot I got bounced into a shell inside initramfs and had to 
manually assemble to raid arrays before I could carry on (and then correct 
that mistake). 

Hopefully when I get home from work this evening I can continue (can't get 
Xorg working - but I have a backup of my xorg.conf so that should solve 
this).



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(via webmail - normally means I am not at my computer)


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-06 Thread Douglas Allan Tutty
On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 12:55:46PM +0100, Alan Chandler wrote:
 On 8/4/07, Alan Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian
 unstable).  It has 1GB of memory 
 
 I am wondering two things 
 
 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
 - Is it faster?
 
 I am only responding to this particular message in the thread because my 
 computer is still not fully operational and this is the only way (at the 
 moment) to comment on this process. 

[snip many woes]

When you ran the installer, did you start from scratch?  Did you start
by removing your existing partitions?  I don't think you can reuse
a 32-bit software raid setup on 64-bit (don't know, never tried).

The only thing you can probably reuse is your /home, however, if /home
is on a raid or LVM partition, you may not be able to reuse it either.
If this is the case, at the beginning of the installer, choose a disk to
partition and tell it to ignore the partition table and start from
scratch.  If it doesn't let you do that either, restart the installer,
and go to the VC with a shell and 

#dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/[drive toclear] bs=512 count=1 

to clear the partition table.

Doug.


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-06 Thread Alan Chandler
On Monday 06 August 2007, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
 On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 12:55:46PM +0100, Alan Chandler wrote:
  On 8/4/07, Alan Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from
   Debian unstable).  It has 1GB of memory
  
  I am wondering two things
  
  a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
  - Is it faster?
 
  I am only responding to this particular message in the thread
  because my computer is still not fully operational and this is the
  only way (at the moment) to comment on this process.

 [snip many woes]

 When you ran the installer, did you start from scratch?  Did you
 start by removing your existing partitions?  I don't think you can
 reuse a 32-bit software raid setup on 64-bit (don't know, never
 tried).

I needed to keep my LVM on Raid partition, because that was where my 
home was.  That part worked great.  It would seem to me a really bad 
idea to not have compatibility between the two.

I only destroyed the /boot and swap partitions whilst I resized them 
(inside the partitioner inside the installer), and then told the 
partitioner in the installer to set them up as raid (you go into a raid 
submenu to create a raid device). The / (root) partition I asked the 
installer to reformat, but didn't change it





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http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-05 Thread Stefan Monnier
 is because there is a penalty for executing 32-bit code, one which is

There is none (if you use the 32bit subset of the AMD64 architecture).
But there is a penalty for using the x86 architecture instead of the
amd64 architecture.

This penalty is not specific to the Athlon64/Opteron/younameit, but to all
known x86 implementation: it's just the the x86 architecture has few
registers and this limitation was partly lifted in the amd64 architecture.

So the penalty you're talking about, is there because the amd64
architecture did more than extend pointers and int to 64bit, it also fixed
a few problems in the x86 architecture.  It has nothing to do with whether
or not the amd64 is a true 64 bit architecture, whatever that may mean.


Stefan


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-05 Thread Bob Proulx
Andrew J. Barr wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
  Andrew J. Barr wrote:
   Yes. Unlike true 64-bit architectures like PowerPC, there is a penalty
   for executing 32 bit code on amd64/em64t processors.

Most certainly incorrect.  In fact natively compiled AMD64 64-bit
compiled code *may* run faster due to better optimizations available
by having more registers available.  But typically amd64 runs both
32-bit and 64-bit at similar performance levels.

  Penalty?  Absolutely fscking not  The A64 processes 32 bit code
  at a similar speed to regular Athlon CPUs.

Most emphatically agree!

 Do you have any sources for this?

Search the web.  I am too lazy to go looking myself at this moment.

 I remember quite distinctly seeing on a mailing list, I think it was
 debian-powerpc in fact, that the only reason that AMD64 operating
 systems have an all-64-bit user land is because there is a penalty
 for executing 32-bit code, one which is not present on other true
 64-bit architectures.

Ahem, that is incorrect.  For example Red Hat and SuSE GNU/Linux on
amd64 install a biarch model with dual support for both 32-bit and
64-bit.  So I would put forward that most amd64 systems support both
32-bit and 64-bit out of the box.  The reason Debian is a pure 64-bit
system is simply that the biarch model used by Red Hat and SuSE is
terrible.  It is too ugly for words.  There was huge discussion about
how to support amd64 for Debian.  The obvious way to go is the
multiarch model but no one could agree to actually do it.

Meanwhile a pure 64-bit port was pretty simple, direct and without
serious complication.  A pure 64-bit port would be quite useful to a
large segment of the population.  Even if agreement could not be
reached on either biarch or multiarch a pure 64-bit port could be made
and would be useful and could transition to multiarch in the future
when the issues were resolved with it.  But even so there was huge
resistance because it was not a perfect solution and did not support
32-bit applications out of the box.  Arguments ensued.  The amd64 port
was prevented from entering Debian Sarge.  A sad time all things
considered.

Debian went with a pure 64-bit model on amd64 out of a pragmatic
attitude that it was good enough and that pursuit of a perfect
multiarch model should not prevent using 64-bit amd64 now.  There was
never any issue of performance difference entering into the
discussion.  A review of the early days of the debian-amd64 mailing
list would contain the history of these decisions.

Bob


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-05 Thread Douglas Allan Tutty
On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 12:28:14AM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
 But even so there was huge resistance because it was not a perfect
 solution and did not support 32-bit applications out of the box.  

I run Etch amd64 on may Athlon64 3800+ and its great.  Then again, this box
was an upgrade from my 486 :)

The only thing I need ia32 for is iceweasel/flash.  For this, I had to
setup a chroot which wasn't that bad and takes up 442 MB of disk space.
The only thing that would have been convenient would have been an amd64
package that brought in debootstrap and schroot and whatever else and
did all the setup ready for installing the chroot.  There was a lot of
reading of howtos and man pages to bring myself up-to-speed on setting
it up.

Now I see in Sid there's a wrapper for mozilla plugins to make using a
chroot for this unneccessary, however there could still be value in a
'ia32-schroot' meta-package.

Doug.



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Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Alan Chandler
I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian 
unstable).  It has 1GB of memory

I am wondering two things

a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode? 
- Is it faster?
- Are the packages less stable?
- Does it need significantly more memory?
- Can I use 32 bit apps from the repository if I have problems with an 
identically named one in the 64 bit repository (with pinning maybe)
b) Is there a simple transition path?
- Is there any howto?
- My current unstable repository seems to have a 64 bit kernel - do I 
just install that and then change where my sources.list points



-- 
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http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Marko Randjelovic
Alan Chandler wrote:
 I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian 
 unstable).  It has 1GB of memory
 
 I am wondering two things
 
 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode? 
   - Is it faster?
   - Are the packages less stable?
   - Does it need significantly more memory?
   - Can I use 32 bit apps from the repository if I have problems with an 
 identically named one in the 64 bit repository (with pinning maybe)

Yes, it is faster. Packages are not less stable, but some are
unavailable. It does need significantly more memory, but your system
should work fine, unless you use some very hungry apps like Eclipse.
You can install some 32-bit apps using dpkg with --force-architecture
option. If you need Acroread, first install ia32-libs-gtk from Ubuntu.

 b) Is there a simple transition path?
   - Is there any howto?
   - My current unstable repository seems to have a 64 bit kernel - do I 
 just install that and then change where my sources.list points
 

I think you have to install from scratch.


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Ron Johnson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 08/04/07 03:25, Alan Chandler wrote:
 I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian 
 unstable).  It has 1GB of memory
 
 I am wondering two things
 
 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode? 
   - Is it faster?

Yes.  There are more CPU registers, which means that programs need
do less fetching and storing of temp variables to and from memory.

Applications (like modern Python interpreters) which use lots of
long long 64 bit integers will also be significantly faster.

   - Are the packages less stable?

Why should they be?

   - Does it need significantly more memory?

Not that you'd notice, unless you are already memory constrained.

However, having 2 banks of 512MB will give it better RAM bandwidth.

   - Can I use 32 bit apps from the repository if I have problems with an 
 identically named one in the 64 bit repository (with pinning maybe)

Yes, within chroots.

 b) Is there a simple transition path?

Reinstall from scratch, and pray that your /home is on a seperate
partition.

   - Is there any howto?
   - My current unstable repository seems to have a 64 bit kernel - do I 
 just install that and then change where my sources.list points

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA  USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread pinniped


* a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
* - Is it faster?
I don't know - never ran my Opteron in 32-bit mode. I was wishing 64-bit 
floating point operations would be faster but they're not because AMD didn't 
really improve the math unit. In principle it should be faster if only because 
you're running in Native mode rather than Compatibility mode.

* - Are the packages less stable?
No.  It is possible that some 'unclean' code which is being transitioned to 64-bit will 
cause problems but I am not familiar with any. OpenOffice was unclean at one stage but 
the fix-up was completed at least a year ago. (Having said that, I had fixed up 64-bit 
issues in 2 open source libraries.)

* - Does it need significantly more memory?
No, memory use doesn't change that much except for addresses now being 64-bit 
(well, something like 48 really) rather than 32-bit. 32-bit addresses limited 
you to 4GB of virtual memory.  With 64-bit addressing you probably cannot 
afford to buy enough memory to make use of all 48 address bits.

* - Can I use 32 bit apps from the repository if I have problems with an
identically named one in the 64 bit repository (with pinning maybe)
Yes, but it's tricky. The kernel needs to support the 32-bit system call format 
(I think the Debian kernels enable this by default) and you need a 32-bit 
dynamic loader and 32-bit libraries.  Your 32-bit program can only make system 
calls and link to 32-bit libraries.

* b) Is there a simple transition path?
Yes, install from scratch.
* - Is there any howto?
Numerous howtos on the Debian AMD64 website.Have a look at the links near the 
bottom of this:
http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/

* - My current unstable repository seems to have a 64 bit kernel - do I just 
install that and then change where my sources.list points
No. Install from scratch.  Install 32-bit libraries as needed.

Some software (notably numerous proprietary stuff - people have already 
mentioned Acrobat Reader) are available as 32-bit only.  Other proprietary 
binaries that come to mind are Flash Player and Skype.  I've nagged Skype for a 
few months but they really don't care.  I don't use any of these 32-bit only 
software because I refuse to waste disk space installing 32-bit libs.  If you 
use Wine or CrossoverOffice or Cedega you will have pretty much a complete 
32-bit installation in parallel with your 64-bit.  If you really use a lot of 
32-bit stuff, stick to 32-bit until things improve (that may be a few more 
years). The exception to that of course is if you're one of those people who 
really wants to squeeze something out of every CPU cycle.


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Alan Chandler
On Saturday 04 Aug 2007, Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 08/04/07 03:25, Alan Chandler wrote:

  b) Is there a simple transition path?

 Reinstall from scratch, and pray that your /home is on a seperate
 partition.

Well the only home that matters - ie mine is - this is essentially just 
a personal machine.  I am using raid1 with LVM on top, so I can easily 
create additional partitions and move things about as I wish.

My only slight reservation is I am not sure if the installer supports 
raid, so it might be more complex than just installing. I also want to 
take the opportunity to enlarge my /boot partition (also raid 1) as 32M 
is just not enough these days - frequently seem to fill it up as I 
upgrade kernels.




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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Douglas Allan Tutty
On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:19:09PM +0100, Alan Chandler wrote:
 On Saturday 04 Aug 2007, Ron Johnson wrote:
  On 08/04/07 03:25, Alan Chandler wrote:
 
   b) Is there a simple transition path?
 
  Reinstall from scratch, and pray that your /home is on a seperate
  partition.
 
 Well the only home that matters - ie mine is - this is essentially just 
 a personal machine.  I am using raid1 with LVM on top, so I can easily 
 create additional partitions and move things about as I wish.
 
 My only slight reservation is I am not sure if the installer supports 
 raid, so it might be more complex than just installing. I also want to 
 take the opportunity to enlarge my /boot partition (also raid 1) as 32M 
 is just not enough these days - frequently seem to fill it up as I 
 upgrade kernels.
 

I don't think that you can keep your 32-bit raid/LVM setup, but I don't
know.  Your safest option is to backup your /home (you do this anyway,
right), and do a clean reinstall.

Doug.


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Jose Luis Rivas Contreras
Marko Randjelovic wrote:
 option. If you need Acroread, first install ia32-libs-gtk from Ubuntu.

Just for the record, I installed today ia32-libs-gtk from officials
unstable repos in Debian...

Regards,
Jose Luis.
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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Andrew J. Barr
On 8/4/07, Alan Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian
 unstable).  It has 1GB of memory

 I am wondering two things

 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
 - Is it faster?

Yes. Unlike true 64-bit architectures like PowerPC, there is a penalty
for executing 32 bit code on amd64/em64t processors. This is why the
amd64 port of Debian has an all 64-bit user land, whereas other 64-bit
ports of Linux and other operating systems generally have mostly a
32-bit user land and compile only applications that would benefit for
64-bit.

-- 
Andrew Barr

We matter more than pounds and pence,
your economic theory makes no sense...


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Ron Johnson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 08/04/07 12:53, Andrew J. Barr wrote:
 On 8/4/07, Alan Chandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I have a Core2 Duo on which I am running a 686 kernel (from Debian
 unstable).  It has 1GB of memory

 I am wondering two things

 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
 - Is it faster?
 
 Yes. Unlike true 64-bit architectures like PowerPC, there is a penalty
 for executing 32 bit code on amd64/em64t processors.

Penalty?  Absolutely fscking not  The A64 processes 32 bit code
at a similar speed to regular Athlon CPUs.

  This is why the
 amd64 port of Debian has an all 64-bit user land, whereas other 64-bit
 ports of Linux and other operating systems generally have mostly a
 32-bit user land and compile only applications that would benefit for
 64-bit.
 


- --
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Jefferson LA  USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Andrew J. Barr
On 8/4/07, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 08/04/07 12:53, Andrew J. Barr wrote:
  a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
  - Is it faster?
 
  Yes. Unlike true 64-bit architectures like PowerPC, there is a penalty
  for executing 32 bit code on amd64/em64t processors.

 Penalty?  Absolutely fscking not  The A64 processes 32 bit code
 at a similar speed to regular Athlon CPUs.

Do you have any sources for this? I remember quite distinctly seeing
on a mailing list, I think it was debian-powerpc in fact, that the
only reason that AMD64 operating systems have an all-64-bit user land
is because there is a penalty for executing 32-bit code, one which is
not present on other true 64-bit architectures. 64-bit code /does/ use
more memory, so it is advantageous to have a mixed userland if you can
afford it--e.g. only compiling applications that will benefit from
64-bit into 64-bit executables. This is what the OSes for other 64-bit
architectures do.

Perhaps the penalty is only under a 64-bit kernel...

-- 
Andrew Barr

We matter more than pounds and pence,
your economic theory makes no sense...


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Re: Transitioning to 64bit, is it worth it, and how

2007-08-04 Thread Ron Johnson
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 08/04/07 14:31, Andrew J. Barr wrote:
 On 8/4/07, Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 08/04/07 12:53, Andrew J. Barr wrote:
 a) What are the pros and cons in switching to 64 bit mode?
 - Is it faster?
 Yes. Unlike true 64-bit architectures like PowerPC, there is a penalty
 for executing 32 bit code on amd64/em64t processors.
 Penalty?  Absolutely fscking not  The A64 processes 32 bit code
 at a similar speed to regular Athlon CPUs.
 
 Do you have any sources for this? I remember quite distinctly seeing
 on a mailing list, I think it was debian-powerpc in fact, that the
 only reason that AMD64 operating systems have an all-64-bit user land
 is because there is a penalty for executing 32-bit code, one which is
 not present on other true 64-bit architectures. 64-bit code /does/ use
 more memory, so it is advantageous to have a mixed userland if you can
 afford it--e.g. only compiling applications that will benefit from
 64-bit into 64-bit executables. This is what the OSes for other 64-bit
 architectures do.
 
 Perhaps the penalty is only under a 64-bit kernel...

I think we might have different definitions of penalty.

What I mean is that an AMD64 in 32-bit mode will run apps at the
same speed as an equivalently-clocked AthlonXP.

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA  USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

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