<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 29/08/2007, <b class="gmail_sendername">Gavin McCullagh</b> <<a href="mailto:gmccullagh@gmail.com">gmccullagh@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi,<br><br>On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Krsnendu dasa wrote:<br><br>> I'll be starting with 4 GB of RAM, (possibly increasing it in future.) Which<br>> kernel should I use?<br><br>As 32-bit machines usually address memory on a 32-bit address space, if you
<br>have more than 2^32 bits of memory (about 4GB), you run out of addresses<br>and can't use the remaining RAM. Actually, PCI devices must also be mapped<br>into the 32-bit address space which usually leaves you with more like
<br>3-3.5GB).<br><br>If you're using a 32-bit kernel, you can either use:<br><br> - the -generic- which will usually use a little over 3GB (4GB minus some<br> address space used by the pci devices)<br><br> - the -server- which should use the full memory (using PAE), but at some
<br> processing cost<br> <a href="http://www.spack.org/wiki/LinuxRamLimits">http://www.spack.org/wiki/LinuxRamLimits</a><br><br>If you use a 64-bit kernel, just using the standard -generic- kernel will<br>allow you to address 2^64 bytes, so you don't need to worry about memory
<br>limits. The only thing is that fully 64-bit systems are relatively new and<br>still have some issues, usually with proprietary software (eg. there is no<br>adobe flash plugin or acrobat reader for 64-bit). You can if you wish do
<br>more complex things to run 32-bit apps on a 64-bit system.<br><br> <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/32bit_and_64bit">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/32bit_and_64bit</a><br> <a href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=616&num=1">
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=616&num=1</a><br><br>I'm not sure what the issues are with WINE and 64-bit but it seems likely<br>a 32-bit windows app will need to run in 32-bit mode on linux.
<br><br>Gavin</blockquote><div><br>I have a 64 bit system at home and I got flash going. I got stuck
installing Freenx. <br><br>In general I think it will be more straightforward
to use 32 bit.<br>
I think the easiest way to start will be to start with the generic
kernel and monitor the memory usage. Tips for how to monitor RAM usage would be
appreciated.<br>
If we need more than 4GB we can use a different kernel. -server or maybe 64 bit?<br></div><br></div><br>