Vince Weaver wrote:
Unless you've got some sort of compelling reason to run a 64-bit OS, I'd
stick with 32-bit. I've heard most of the compat issues have been ironed
out, but I always seem to hear about something or the other not working.
Like what?
I've been running 64-bit Linux on various machines for over 5 years
with no problems to speak of.
I agree whole-heartedly. I have no idea where this FUD of having
problems with 64-bit Linux comes from... maybe people assume that since
64-bit Windows is rife with driver problems and incompatibilities, Linux
must be having the same problems. I have been running Debian and Ubuntu
on x86_64 for over two years with no problems. *ALL* the free software
works perfectly, *ALL* the drivers work, I have *NEVER* encountered a
bug that seemed to be caused by using the 64-bit version.
If you have >860MB of RAM you should run 64-bit just because you will
get a performance boost. And if this is the x86_64 architecture you
talk of when you say "64-bit" you'll also probably get a boost due to
the extra registers available.
Yes, this is absolutely true. Linux has a concept of high memory, which
means that it has to go through extra page-table indirection, and takes
a performance hit, when accessing memory above a certain limit imposed
by the architecture and/or the Linux memory map.
And the extra registers of 64-bit CPUs are very nice too. Having double
the general-purpose hardware registers undoubtedly makes for more
efficient code. It's one of the chief innovations of the RISC
processors that they included many registers and thus reduced cache and
memory access, and enabled greater compiler code-generation flexibility.
It is hard for me to gauge, but I would say my Athlon 64 box runs about
10-20% faster under 64-bit Linux than with 32-bit Linux (I carry around
a USB stick with 32-bit Debian on it, and have tried running this on my
home computer to compare it).
It is true that if you use binary drivers (like nvidia, nidswrapper,
etc), want to run proprietary plugins (like the flash plugin) or run
other proprietary software you might have issues. If you tend to run
mostly free software you should be fine.
Actually, I have had no problems at all with the NVidia or ATI drivers
under 64-bit Ubuntu... at least, no problems that could be blamed on
64-bit as opposed to the general crappiness of the closed-source
drivers. I use native wireless drivers, which work flawlessly in 64-bit
mode... even the bcm43xx reverse-engineered driver for Broadcom-based
cards works great on my Turion 64 X2 laptop.
The closed-source Flash plugin is just about the *only* thing that has
no 64-bit version. And that is entirely Adobe's fault. However, you
can use 32-bit Firefox under a 64-bit distro, so that you can use the
Flash plugin. Some distributions make this really easy to do.
Personally, I don't like Flash at all. I only want to be able to watch
YouTube clips! Fortunately, the latest versions of the open-source
Gnash plugin (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/) can display YouTube
movies correctly, including sound. So now that I can watch YouTube
videos, I don't really care about any other Flash stuff that isn't
possibel yet.
So, basically, I would say that 64-bit Linux does *everything* just as
well as 32-bit Linux, or better. The ONLY exception is Flash. And if
you must use the proprietary Flash plugin, you can get the 32-bit
version working under 64-bit Linux. So there's pretty much no downside,
and a lot of performance advantage. As well as the ability to upgrade
to >4gb RAM :-)
Dan Lenski
