[ale] 64-bit vs 32-bit?

[Jim Kinney]

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:19 AM, Ed Cashin <ecashin at noserose.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Robert <rs at ale.spam.futz.org> wrote:
> >>>The only plus that I have seen it that I can run >4GB RAM. Since I use
> my
> >>>machine for editing and mastering audio I find that to be valuable.
> >>
> >> I do photo processing. When I had 4gb of ram, I often had to quit my RAW
> >> conversion software to free up memory to run the GIMP. I recently
> upgraded to
> >> 8gb, and am still running a 32 bit kernel. Now both apps can use up to
> 3.5gb
> >> of ram each and I can leave them both running. Yay!
> >>
> >> So, in response to the original poster: I think that unless you *know*
> you need
> >> more than 4gb of ram for a single app/process, you should be fine with a
> 32 bit
> >> kernel, even if you have more than 4gb of ram.
> >
> > Is your kernel using PAE?  On the way to the full 64-bit technology,
> > there were a lot of stepping-stone technologies, and maybe you're
> > being helped by one.  Just curious.
> >
>
> It may not be easy to tell if you have a kernel from the last couple years.
>
> == details
> opensuse no longer ships a PAE kernel.  All of their 32-bit kernels
> are PAE enabled.
>
> IIRC, it is because the kernel team a year or two ago added some logic
> to self-modify the assembly of the kernel on bootup.
>
> IIRC: If PAE capable hardware is found, then the kernel runs as
> compiled.  If not, the machine-code is modified to have NOOPs in the
> PAE code.
>
> Since then, opensuse no longer ships a pre-compiled non-PAE kernel.
>

Fedora also does this and the new RHEL 6 does as well.

>
> Greg
>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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