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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
