Look, I'm not saying 64-bit Linux doesn't work, or that it wouldn't be a good choice. I just think it's a little disingenuous to say "oh, everything works", and then, in the same email, point out a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't work so well, albeit proprietary. I also find it a little annoying to hear the complete whitewashing of Linux's early 64-bit problems. There was a LOT of open source code and drivers that weren't 64-bit safe at first. That's changed, but the reputation didn't come about because of Windows.
I'm also not sure I'm buying this 10-20% general speed-up thing, either, but I'll let that go. IMHO, most desktop users would prefer less compatibility hassles even if it meant a bit less speed, which is why I recommended 32-bit. It's a trade-off. -DMZ From: Anant K [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 8:22 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [UM-LINUX] 64 bit OS I agree, I haven't really had any problems running 64-bit with Gentoo. When dealing with non-free binary stuff, I just run the 32-bit version of it. No big deal. On 8/22/07, Daniel Lenski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Vince Weaver wrote: >> Unless you've got some sort of compelling reason to run a 64-bit OS, I'd >> stick with 32-bit. I've heard most of the compat issues have been ironed >> out, but I always seem to hear about something or the other not working. > > Like what? > > I've been running 64-bit Linux on various machines for over 5 years > with no problems to speak of. I agree whole-heartedly. I have no idea where this FUD of having problems with 64-bit Linux comes from... maybe people assume that since 64-bit Windows is rife with driver problems and incompatibilities, Linux must be having the same problems. I have been running Debian and Ubuntu on x86_64 for over two years with no problems. *ALL* the free software works perfectly, *ALL* the drivers work, I have *NEVER* encountered a bug that seemed to be caused by using the 64-bit version. > If you have >860MB of RAM you should run 64-bit just because you will > get a performance boost. And if this is the x86_64 architecture you > talk of when you say "64-bit" you'll also probably get a boost due to > the extra registers available. Yes, this is absolutely true. Linux has a concept of high memory, which means that it has to go through extra page-table indirection, and takes a performance hit, when accessing memory above a certain limit imposed by the architecture and/or the Linux memory map. And the extra registers of 64-bit CPUs are very nice too. Having double the general-purpose hardware registers undoubtedly makes for more efficient code. It's one of the chief innovations of the RISC processors that they included many registers and thus reduced cache and memory access, and enabled greater compiler code-generation flexibility. It is hard for me to gauge, but I would say my Athlon 64 box runs about 10-20% faster under 64-bit Linux than with 32-bit Linux (I carry around a USB stick with 32-bit Debian on it, and have tried running this on my home computer to compare it). > It is true that if you use binary drivers (like nvidia, nidswrapper, > etc), want to run proprietary plugins (like the flash plugin) or run > other proprietary software you might have issues. If you tend to run > mostly free software you should be fine. Actually, I have had no problems at all with the NVidia or ATI drivers under 64-bit Ubuntu... at least, no problems that could be blamed on 64-bit as opposed to the general crappiness of the closed-source drivers. I use native wireless drivers, which work flawlessly in 64-bit mode... even the bcm43xx reverse-engineered driver for Broadcom-based cards works great on my Turion 64 X2 laptop. The closed-source Flash plugin is just about the *only* thing that has no 64-bit version. And that is entirely Adobe's fault. However, you can use 32-bit Firefox under a 64-bit distro, so that you can use the Flash plugin. Some distributions make this really easy to do. Personally, I don't like Flash at all. I only want to be able to watch YouTube clips! Fortunately, the latest versions of the open-source Gnash plugin (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/) can display YouTube movies correctly, including sound. So now that I can watch YouTube videos, I don't really care about any other Flash stuff that isn't possibel yet. So, basically, I would say that 64-bit Linux does *everything* just as well as 32-bit Linux, or better. The ONLY exception is Flash. And if you must use the proprietary Flash plugin, you can get the 32-bit version working under 64-bit Linux. So there's pretty much no downside, and a lot of performance advantage. As well as the ability to upgrade to >4gb RAM :-) Dan Lenski
