[ale] OT: 64 bit laptops

[Ray Knight]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 00:54, Greg wrote:
> 64 bits only is better than 32 in some respects - high end
> graphics,modeling,multimedia, (perhaps mathematics) and huge databases.  I
> have a UltraSPARC-IIe (64-bit SPARCv9 processor) and it drags on Solaris, is
> ok on OpenBSD but the word from others is that they still get better mileage
> on 32 bit architectures.  Or as one person advised me "64-bit applications
> tend to be a tad bit slower than their 32-bit counterparts so even though
> I'm running a 64-bit SPARCv9 kernel, I still compile those apps as 32-bit
> programs using the Sun compilers and optimize the heck out of them."  As far
> as the reports about the new Macs - who knows.  So much crap has been done
> in the name of "benchmarks" that I am truly skeptical of just about
> everything - especially if comparing 2 different systems (each should be
> optimized by an expert in that system to really get a good comparison).
> 
> Greg
> 
You are correct.  Run your kernel 64bit and compile most apps at 32bit. 
Compile for 64bit only for those applications where memory usage or data
access really needs the 64bit pointers (we're mostly talking specialized
applications like James III mentioned earlier).   

I'm not familiar with all the 64 bit Linux distros, but the Aurora Linux
distribution has most applications compiled 32bit, but uses a 64bit
kernel for the UltraSparcs.  

Ray