Advantages of 64bit over 32bit system

[witek]

I would like to ask you about the advantages of using 64bit Salix over 32bit on an average system with less than 4GRAM. The drawbacks are clear: Skype, wine, adobe-reader, etc. require multilib in order to work. Is there any significant speed increase seen when using 64bit?

Also, I read that 64 bit system uses twice as much memory as 32 bit. It seemed logical but then I found that it regards only 64 bit pointers, so it should consume similar amount of memory compared to 32bit.

And what are your observations?

[djemos]

If your machine is 64 bit then install salix 64bit. You can install salix 32bit as well but in that case system will run in emulation mode.
About speed, i did not make any tests but i did not notice any difference in speed in everyday usage. If you compile and made heavy jobs then maybe 64bit it will be faster. But as i say i did not make any tests to prove this.
I have a 64bit HPG62 laptop with 2 GB memory dual core and i use salix64bit.
About Skype, wine etc i have installed multilib.

[witek]

So far I have always used 32bit systems, even with 64bit machines and everything works OK. I`m a bit afraid of dedicated 64bit linux due to problems with skype, adobe-reader, etc. Thus I`m asking. On the other hand if there is no difference why use 64bit at all?

[djemos]

1) For some tasks like audio ripping, video encoding, etc 64bit can be a lot faster.
2) Some people think 64 bit is better or faster somehow or maybe newer but it really only has it use in the proper place. That place is for systems that have and NEED to use a lot of ram and systems where the apps can take advantage of that extra ram. Otherwise you are actually loosing ram to unusable data

So use a 32 bit system unless you have way more than 4 gig.

[Akuna]

The drawbacks are clear: Skype, wine, adobe-reader, etc. require multilib in order to work

I guess then only for the folks who have any use for those.

[thenktor]

Skype, wine, adobe-reader, ... who need this stuff? What I need are 8 GB of RAM so I can simply run a 32 bit system in VirtualBox if really needed. On a 64 bit system I always chose the 64 bit OS. Why? because I can
You won't notice a difference in speed, perhaps except for few very CPU demanding tasks (because of better compiler optimization).

[witek]

Skype, wine, adobe-reader, ... who need this stuff?

World is not as plain and simple as you might think.
My wife needs skype at home and the people in my office need adobe-reader and wine to run some irreplaceable windows applications.

[JRD]

I use Salix OS 32 bits at home on a 64 bits system, because:
- I only have 2GB of RAM
- I want to run skype and wine without installing multilib
I use Salix OS 64 bits at work (obviously on a 64 bits system), because:
- I have 6 (recently upgraded to 8) GB of RAM and I deperate need it!
- I don't have to run skype, but I needed wine for a small software, so I installed multilib. Was not so complicated as it seems.

So for you personal use, with a computer with less than 4GB, I say use a 32 bits OS.

[mimosa]

There are open-source equivalents for skype and adobe reader. But I do agree with Witek about wine. I use it for the Wenlin Chinese language software, a version of which for Linux is apparently in development but a long way off. I wish I could use it for Autocad, for my architect daughter, who therefore uses Windows. There are open-source equivalents in development, but they're nowhere close. And there are unfortunately times when Libre mangles Office formatting. I know, Microsoft does it deliberately, and a wordprocessor shouldn't try to be a DTP suite as well. But my clients don't care about that.

[thenktor]

Skype, wine, adobe-reader, ... who need this stuff?

World is not as plain and simple as you might think.

You see the smiley?

But to be honest: before I'd use wine to run some Windows office tools I'd rather buy a Windows XP license (20 €) and install it in Virtualbox. No hassle, everything works right from the start. I even can access USB hardware (e.g. a phone) to update it's firmware. Don't try this with wine...