Re: Opinion question (Core2 Duo)
On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 04:17:26PM -0400, Zaq Rizer wrote:
> I have an Intel Core2 Duo arriving in the mail in a couple of days, and
> I read online that these processors can run in either 32bit or 64bit
> mode (just like Athlons can).
>
> Thing is, the 32bit chroot and ia32-compatibility libraries, are, imo, a
> total mess and a real pain in the rear to deal with on a daily basis.
>
> I'm looking for people's opinions on whether I should stick with
> debian-amd64, or do a reinstall of debian from the main branch (32bit)?
>
> What, truly, are the real performance differences? Simply support for
> 4+G of ram, or something else?
>
> My /home is a seperate partition, as are my mp3s, etc etc, so data
> retention is not a huge concern.
For some applications you gain performance with 64bit (sometimes quite a
bit), and for a few (don't know of any) you loose a little bit.
As for ram, well it allows you to have more than 2 or 3GB (or whatever
the current limit is) of memory for a single process.
64bit programs can of course memory map files much larger than a 32bit
program can, which may make writing that application much simpler and
potentially much more efficient.
You could install a 32bit system, with the amd64 kernel (which i386 does
offer) and setup a 64bit chroot to play with stuff in and just use 32bit
for your normal use (that is what I personally have one the one 64bit
athlon at work).
If I had a 64bit athlon at home it would be running 64bit, but I don't
mind a few problems if I get to play with new stuff and fixing things a
bit.
--
Len Sorensen
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