Re: 32 versus 64 bit reading list suggestions

Hi Richard,

Potentially zero difference - until the 32 bit browser just isn't there any more / isn't patched. This is the sort of question that the debian-cd team are also pondering: as the years go on, it is harder and harder to justify 32 bit software at least for the x86 architecture. There are already problems with some software that just won't build well in a 32 bit environment.

On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 3:12 PM Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:

On 09/07/2020 09:28 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 07, 2020 at 05:22:20PM +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:
>> You'll be able to use more RAM, CPU's registers. On the other hand some
>> software vendors do not support x86 anymore - example: Google Chrome
>
> Expanding on this a little bit: the 64 bit architecture has more CPU
> registers which could greatly improve performance for some tasks. I
> think that there are certain other CPU instructions that are not
> available in 32 bit mode that your programs could take advantage of.
>
> Not only can you use more RAM (you can address >4GiB with 64 bit memory
> addresses without requiring workarounds like PAE), but you will almost
> certainly *use* more RAM too, since all native pointers are now twice
> the size. And, since most of them will be pointing at addresses lower
> than the 4GiB boundary, half of all the newly consumed RAM will be
> zeroes.
>

Answers I'm seem focused on too low levels. I'm interested in the
end-user experience.

E.G. what end user observable difference would there be between 32 bit
based browser and a 64 bit based browser?

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