amd64 - 32bit vs 64bit. Should I switch?

orange_blob · n00b Joined: 13 May 2003 Posts: 23

Hey,

I'm also interested i what people have to say about this, as I will soon be getting a new machine. I was at first really keen to get a 64-bit OS running, but after reading the technotes and other posts here I'm not to sure if it'd be worth the hassle

From what I've read amd 64 cpus do really well under 32-bit OSs, but 64-bit would be better wouldn't it?

Psykk · n00b Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 49

Not everything that works in 32 bit works in 64 bit. Some packages are unstable, some are masked, and some are just plain missing in amd64. I'll be perfectly honest -- 32 bit is easier.

Now, that said, 64 bit is just generally fun and kinda cool. The ride's half the fun (or all of the fun for me). Many things do work natively in 64 bit. Some are faster, a few are slower than their 32 bit counterparts. If you've got drive space to burn, you can set up a 32 bit chroot, which enables you to compile apps in 32 bit mode. 95%+ of the time, things work fine this way. 32 bit binaries work except in a very few isolated cases.

And running a 64 bit OS natively with a complete suite of 64 bit apps is certainly worth nerd points, especially if you had to spend time to get it working and have stories to tell.
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plbe · l33t Joined: 01 May 2004 Posts: 661

All the programs I use work just fine :wink:

xanas3712 · Guru Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 455

Well, Psykk I just got here and I already know you are a pretty controversial figure so I hope you don't mind if I take that with a grain of salt. Not to say a good portion of your posts aren't very well written, because they are. I just hope I can get a few more comments from the other side as well. Ultimately, I don't doubt you, based on the fact people are going x86 I'm beginning to think there has to be some good reason for it, and I'm sure there are some things I'm going to want that will be less of a pain to get working

I also do realize that a lot of people are here for "nerd points" Let me make it clear that I'm not really about that. I like linux because of it's philosophy and the availability of open source software more than I am into it in order to spend hours and hours configuring it. That's fun and all too sometimes, but atm I'm just wanting to have something that works and is more stable than windows. I'm also doing it partially to get some files on dvd that are stuck on a hd that causes windows to bsod whenever I try to copy from it. I've found that linux is usually less picky with such things.

Just to get an idea of usage, I'll probably want to use media dvd/flash/etc as well as have a try at getting winex or cedega working with world of warcraft. I've been able to do this in the past when I was running an athlon xp.

EDIT: but anyway I'll probably get bored and go the 32 bit route after all, but if someone is really passionate about 64 bit and the fact that it works better and wants to convince me still go for it. It's not like I'm not willing to go through another install

Multiplexor · n00b Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 10

There still isn't an unmasked 64-bit ATI driver in portage. I have an ATI card and it's taken some effort to get working properly (64-bit games worked properly right out of the box, the problem was getting 32-bit games to work with it as well).

If you want a system that "just works", go with 32-bit. You can always upgrade later when 64-bit is settled down. If you want to take advantage of the numerous speed increases due to the extra registers and extra bits and don't mind having to manually mess around with settings to get things to work, go with 64-bit. Unless you're doing lots of crypto or high-end video (gaming or otherwise) you probably won't even notice the speed difference.

eean · Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2005 6:43 am Post subject:

Well, with gaming you wouldn't notice any difference, unless your playing an open source game that you could compile for 64 bit.

I'm asking the same question myself right now. I just want to get some of the benefits of the amd64's design, I understand the main reason amd64 saw speed improvements was due to its improved design (increased registers). But "-O3 -march=athlon-xp -maccumulate-outgoing-args -ftracer -pipe -msse2 -fPIC" sounds pretty scary.

Psykk · n00b Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 49

orangeman12 · Apprentice Joined: 19 Dec 2004 Posts: 283 Location: Chair

I have an amd64 3200 and install the x86 version of gentoo for support and i was wondering if it was worth it to switch to the amd64 version. I have been using gentoo snice last december and have lots of stuff installed. The main question would be is would the proformence greater so that its worth my time to install all the stuff?
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andrewd18 · Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 1:32 am Post subject:

You might have better results posting in the AMD64 section of the forum. Then again, they're going to be biased, so maybe your question should stay here.

I run AMD64, and its nice. Makes me feel l337, since I'm truly unlocking the power of my processor. However, multimedia is still through the tubes (no stupid 64-bit native multimedia codecs... and the win32codecs only work 1/2 of the time), 32-bit binaries are few (for those programs like WINE, Cedega, etc), and a LOT of packages are hard masked.

If you have any gaming or multimedia desires, IMO, leave 64-bit alone for a while, and stick with x86. Otherwise, enjoy.

~~ Andrew D.
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electrofreak · l33t Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 713 Location: Ohio, USA

What andrewd18 said is exactly what I've heard. I'm planning to buy an AMD64 system here soon (that reminds me, I need to get a summer job!) and I still haven't decided if I should get AMD64 or not because I still game a lot and depend on multimedia. It seems like a waste to get 64-bit STILL. I think I most likely will just so that once things do go 64-bit really nicely (probably after Windows XP goes 64-bit) I will have it avaliable. But I don't know.

curtis119 · Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 8:15 pm Post subject:

-curtis119: I found 7 threads all with almost identical topics. I read through them and merged them into one. The threads dates did not overlap so this final thread's post order is correct and everything should make sense.
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krakadikt5k · n00b Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 18

you all realize that people have been running gentoo on 64bit platforms for a long time right? alpha, sparc, mips? the 64bit compatability work has been going on a lot longer than amd64 has been out.... its mostly the bug tracking for portage and amd specific stuff that needs to be worked out.
-dan

bos_mindwarp · Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 10:34 am Post subject:

hvengel · Guru Joined: 19 Sep 2004 Posts: 515

eNTi · Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 10:53 am Post subject:

nuff said:

if you plan to play games via cedega/wine i would strongly suggest not to use 64bit. there's a bunch of problems and if you want support, you are pretty much on your own.

if you plan to have a nice rocking desktop with (about) all things to work, no 64bit. e.g. i can't get my tv-card working because of some ioctl32 error, there's no windows video drivers, no native flash, ...

the only real reason you possibly want to go for 64bit is, because you like to break things and report bugs and well, compile a lot faster.

my conclusion... it isn't worth the hassle unless you like beta testing. i wouldn't do it again (for some time). if it wouldn't be too much work to reinstall everything, i'd go back to 32bit.
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Headrush · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 3:46 pm Post subject:

Just to balance opinions, on my amd64 all my cedega games work flawless, didn't have to change anything.
My tv card works perfect, are you sure the ioctl error has to do with amd64?

The only "problems" that I have are 32 bit browser plugins and win32 media codecs.
Both these are minor and am able to work around with a chroot that took about 5 minutes to setup.

asarazan · n00b Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 54

I'd just like to throw in my two cents here.

I started linux with slackware about a year ago on a 733MHz comp that I just used for chatting/browsing/emailing/thottbotting while I was gaming on my main comp. recently I got an AMD64 laptop and decided to try out gentoo64 on it.

So yes, this is my first time setting up a gentoo system, as well as a 64-bit system, and it was an adventure, but with the help of these forums and the compaq r3000 mailing lists and websites, I have nearly everything working flawlessly. It works so well that when I got an amd64 cpu for my desktop 1-2 weeks ago, I put gentoo64 on that thing, and now run it almost exclusively.

The only thing I've found that really can't be fixed with a little fine-tuning and elbow-grease is the win32codecs issue, and for some reason it just magically decided to work on my desktop, so I'm set.

I think the bottom line is, if you run linux at all, the assumption is that you're at least somewhat prepared to work through weird quirks and issues in the first place; amd64 is no different.
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