64 bit distributions - Worth bothering yet?
Luke Dashjr
luke at dashjr.org
Wed Nov 26 21:13:02 CST 2008
1. There is no such thing as "x64"
2. For most architectures, 32 vs 64 bit mostly just allows more more memory
3. For x86, 64-bit adds a number of new registers, which can improve speed.
4. For x86, you can only mix 32-bit and 64-bit apps by having two copies of
your OS (32-bit and 64-bit).
So basically, to summarize: x86_32 vs x86_64 is weighing RAM vs speed. Many
people prefer the RAM savings to the speed, and some have so much RAM that
they opt for 64-bit. For non-x86 architectures, it is most logical to run a
64-bit kernel with 32-bit userland, and have only a few unique applications
64-bit.
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