perspectives on 32 bit vs 64 bit
Dear People,
I have an Opteron server, on which I am running the AMD64 Debian port. For
various reasons, I'm contemplating going back to 32 bit.
The major reason is that aside from the packages in the AMD64 Debian
archive, it is not always easy to find Debian packages for AMD64, since
i386 is still very much the default. Also, not all software compiles with
AMD64.
I am aware that 64 bit computing has considerable advantages as well.
I'm looking for perspectives from people who have experience with both,
and what their feelings about this are.
Specifically, I was looking for clarifications about memory issues. I have
looked at stuff on the web, but am still confused.
What is the 4 Gig limit for 32 bit processors that people talk about? Does
this mean that each process/thread can only get a limit of 4 Gig? Is there
any workaround for this?
What are the other limits? I read elsewhere that a 32 bit Linux system has
an effective limit of 16 Gig usable memory total.
Thoughts appreciated. Please cc me; I'm not subscribed, though I will be
checking via Gmane occasionally. Thanks.
Faheem.
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