David Baron wrote:
I am currently running Sid, 32-bit with recent i686 32 bit kernels. Here is my cpu: ~$ lscpu Architecture: i686 CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit CPU(s): 2 Thread(s) per core: 2 Core(s) per socket: 1 CPU socket(s): 1 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel CPU family: 15 Model: 4 Stepping: 3 CPU MHz: 3000.282 L1d cache: 16K L2 cache: 2048K Should I go to a 64-bit kernel? Benefits vs. Risks? Will 64bit enable kvm functionality on this box?Will this work with existing packages which could then be changed to 64 bit piecemeal or if taking the plunge, must/should redo everything?
Here is mine (4GB memory): Architecture: x86_64 CPU op-mode(s): 64-bit CPU(s): 2 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 2 CPU socket(s): 1 NUMA node(s): 1 Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD CPU family: 16 Model: 6 Stepping: 2 CPU MHz: 3000.399 Virtualization: AMD-V L1d cache: 64K L1i cache: 64K L2 cache: 1024KI do program development, compiles, etc. and have to say that for me 64-bit is definitely faster, to wit:
http://debian-oaxaca.blogspot.com/That graph takes 8.676 secs to execute on Sid amd64 and 16.444 secs on Sid 686-bigmem. Same program, same data.
Hugo