[ubuntu-uk] 64-bit or 32-bit, Was BBC Iplayer download on Linux

[Tony Travis]

Alan Pope wrote:
> 2008/12/21 David King <linuxman at avoura.com>:
>> I do not see why more people do not use 64-bit operating systems. The
>> CPUs on all new PCs are now 64-bit, so why not have 64-bit OS?
> 
> Because (on my laptop) there's zero benefit to running 64-bit version
> of the OS and there are some gotchas with a few things either not
> working or requiring enough faff to get working that it's
> annoying/frustrating/timeconsuming to do it. I ran 64-bit Ubuntu for 6
> months and now have reverted back to 32-bit.
> 
> My laptop has 4GB of RAM but there's a flaw in that it will only show
> 3.3GB to the OS, whether it's 64-bit or 32-bit.

Hello, Al.

Tried changing the configuration of the 4GB memory hole in the BIOS?

You could also try using the 32-bit server kernel with PAE enabled...

Re: 64 vs. 32-bit, I did some integer benchmarks on one of our servers, 
and 64-bit is faster, but not a *lot* faster. The main drawback is that 
programs get bigger because they use 64-bit pointers and unless you are 
careful the data can also take up a lot more space too. Of course, we 
all said the same thing when computing went from 8 to 16-bit, and said 
it all over again again when it went from 16 to 32-bit ;-)

Bye,

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition
and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk
mailto:a.travis at abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt