On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 12:38 -0500, Peter Bergner wrote:
Yes, all x86_64 distros are making 64-bit binaries the default.
The question is why are they doing that, not "hmmm, if they're
doing that for x64_64, that must be the correct answer for ppc64
too". The reason 64-bit is the default for x86_64 is as Ben
mentioned above, they have access to more registers which leads
to vastly less spill code versus 32-bit apps.
Also, IIRC the x86-64 ABI specifies that int is still 32 bit - so much
of the memory penalty for going 64bit doesn't apply.