On Wed, May 06, 2015 at 04:43:57PM -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
I find 64 bit chronically annoying,
Not sure what to imagine under that.
1-most of my machines have less than 4G RAM,
x86_64 does not require 4 GB to show its advantages. Example 1: these two code fragments show the same simple function compiled for x86_64 and i586: 0x0000000000400560 <+0>: add %rsi,%rdi 0x0000000000400563 <+3>: add %rdi,%rdx 0x0000000000400566 <+6>: lea (%rdx,%rcx,1),%rax 0x000000000040056a <+10>: retq 0x08048450 <+0>: mov 0x4(%esp),%edx 0x08048454 <+4>: mov 0x8(%esp),%eax 0x08048458 <+8>: add %edx,%eax 0x0804845a <+10>: mov 0xc(%esp),%ecx 0x0804845e <+14>: add %ecx,%eax 0x08048460 <+16>: mov 0x10(%esp),%edx 0x08048464 <+20>: add %edx,%eax 0x08048466 <+22>: ret The difference is quite obvious, I would say. Example 2: recently I helped a guy running 32-bit system who hit a problem where adding a netfilter rule failed on memory allocation even if about 2/3 of his 2 GB were still free. I won't go into technical details but his problem was directly caused by the deficiencies of i586 architecture and would never happen if he was running a x86_64 system (with the same amount of memory).
2-64 bit installations take more disk space, which in turn means updates require more time and bandwidth for the duplicative required -32bit packages
None of my installs, desktop or server, needs more than 16 GB for root filesystem, most fit into 8 GB. How much could I possibly save by using i586 system? Not much, really. And most of my installs don't actually need -32bit compatibility packages.
4-whatever speed advantage 64 bit may have over 32 bit has never become apparent to me
Try "openssl speed rsa". Last time I checked, the ratio was somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1, that's apparent enough to me. It might be even better with newer generations of CPU's and newer versions of gcc.
5-need for >4G RAM has yet to manifest here
Same comment as above - plus that I'm really happy that I put 32 GB into my working machine two years ago when the prices were half of today's.
6-killing off 32 bit means inducing otherwise premature migration of working machines into landfills, econeg.
I wouldn't be so sure about that, old machines tend to be less energy efficient. Michal Kubecek -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org