Per Jessen wrote:
Carl Hartung wrote:
I migrated a number of servers to 64bit about 12 months ago, and then migrated them back to 32bit some 9-10 months later. These servers were all the same - AMD 64bit, 2Gb RAM. My thinking was "64 has to be better than 32", if nothing else then because it's 64-bit OS/software on a 64-bit CPU. Well, I was wrong. Because of the increase in memory-usage with 64-bit openSUSE, each server ended upn being able to handle less load running 64bit than 32bit. Are you saying I should now downgrade my 11.1 installation to the 32-bit version? I waited *forever* to upgrade my increasingly cranky previous system and when I took the plunge, I installed the 'native' 64-bit flavor!
No, whether you're better off with 32bit or 64bit depends entirely on your system and your software. A heavily loaded database server with 32Gb of memory will no doubt be better off with a 64bit OS and apps. My servers only have 2Gb memory each, and because I'm running several hundred processes on each server, I ended up having room for less when everything was 64bit.
I have boxes of all flavors 32bit - 64bit. I have 1 32-bit laptop and 1 64-laptop. 4 32-bit servers and 2 64-bit servers and several other desktops. I guess it has been a little over a year since building my first 64-bit server (opteron based) on 10.3. My primary server at work is still 32-bit while at home I have the 64-bit box. There isn't enough of a difference to compel me to lug the 64-bit box to work and replace the 32-bit box. The improvements are not dramatic, but good, on server throughput, etc.. Large compiles seem to go faster, though I haven't timed the difference. By far, my server at work is the busiest, but even in that regard, it is hardly even stressed at the busiest of times with the 13 clients it has plus the mail and web load on it. As mentioned already in this thread, gimp on my 64-bit laptop seems faster, but gimp on my old p4 3.3GHz 32-bit laptop is plenty fast as well. I think the thrust of the thread started as a "should I", or "shouldn't I" update from 32-bit on my 64-bit box. To me the answer is that there are no drawbacks to running the 64-bit release on your 64-bit hardware. openSuSE supports both equally and so do 3rd party drivers, etc. (In a majority of cases there isn't any difference) On the plus side, you will see good performance increases in the instances that 64-bit addressing makes a difference. If all my hardware was 64-bit, I'd be running the 64-bit release on all of it. With that said, I am equally happy with my 32-bit boxes and see no compelling reason to run out and change hardware. The bottom line for me is that I have seen (zero) drawbacks from the 64-bit systems and I have seen good benefits where it makes a difference. I don't consider that some packages are 5% or so larger to support the 64-bit addressing -- that's just the reality of the additional code needed to make use of the additional address space. (OK, I did (past tense) see a difference with java for web browsing not having a 64-bit plugin, but sun has since rectified that problem) Match the OS to your hardware. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org