Are 64 bit linux OS's limited like 64 bit windows OS?

[episodic]

I have athlon 64 x2 processor. If I install gutsy gibbon amd 64, will I be plagued with not as much software and limited driver support? How does this work with linux?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

You can still run 32 bit code in the 64 bit environment you'll be in. This way you can install things like the 32 bit java and flash plugins, but only use them if you run 32 bit firefox.

This thread has a lot more information:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=368607

 

[xtknight]

AFAIK all drivers in the Linux kernel tree have 64-bit equivalents (maybe 99%). The i386 and amd64 branches of the Linux kernel are extremely similar in feature set.

NVIDIA/ATI have 64-bit video drivers for Linux. You probably won't have any more trouble using 64-bit than using 32-bit Linux unless you have a rare piece of hardware where only a 32-bit binary is available.

Actually, if you have to use ndiswrapper (requiring non-open source drivers) for your wireless card, then you might not be able to get it working on 64-bit Linux if there's no Windows 64 driver for your card. If there's a Windows 64 driver you may be in luck:

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/NdiswrapperOnAMD64">https://help.ubuntu.com/com......NdiswrapperOnAMD64</a>

 

[Nothinman]

Not really, most free software has been 64-bit clean for years so porting to AMD64 was simple. The only things that aren't 64-bit on my home machine are closed source.

 

[drag]

Ya pretty much.

Open source software and Linux in general is has been 64bit for a long long time now. Remember all this stuff is generally designed to be cross-platform and Linux has supported many 64bit systems that pre-date AMD64 stuff.

So as long as a project has been around for a while and is somewhat popular then it'll be aviable for AMD64. It's the closed source stuff like Flash support that is 32bit only.

 

[episodic]

So when I use apt-get whatever - it will automatically pick the right thing? Biggies for me is photography related stuff. . .like the newest GIMP 2.4, etc.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: episodic
So when I use apt-get whatever - it will automatically pick the right thing? Biggies for me is photography related stuff. . .like the newest GIMP 2.4, etc.

Latest in Gutsy is 2.3.18 but this isn't due to 64-bit.

You can usually find packages for later versions of packages on getdeb or ubuntu forums (often 64-bit versions as well).

Often times, just getting it from Debian is OK and failing the other sources they almost always have 64-bit versions. (You may run into some dependency problems w/ the Debian route.)

Compiling it yourself is the failsafe way to get what you want and make it work with your system. It's not as hard as it sounds, but preferably you should find a guide for compiling GIMP. I have compiled it before and it's a pretty big program. As long as you know what development packages you need though, you shouldn't have any problems.

Ideally you'd also file a bug so GIMP 2.4 gets in Hardy Heron, the next version of Ubuntu.

Well, what do you know, GIMP 2.4 is in Gutsy just as we speak:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/graphics/gimp (note amd64 arch at bottom)

 

[Nothinman]

So when I use apt-get whatever - it will automatically pick the right thing? Biggies for me is photography related stuff. . .like the newest GIMP 2.4, etc.

You don't have much choice in the matter since dpkg doesn't support biarch yet, if you install the i386 distribution you get 32-bit binaries and if you install the AMD64 distribution you get 64-bit binaries. There are a handful of 32-bit packages in the AMD64 port but they're few and far between and mostly just libraries since that's usually what you're looking for to run some proprietary 32-bit binary.

Often times, just getting it from Debian is OK and failing the other sources they almost always have 64-bit versions. (You may run into some dependency problems w/ the Debian route.)

I would strongly advise against that. Debian stable will be way too old and a lot of the time sid moves way too fast, unless the package you're looking at has a really slow development pace it won't likely work out too well.

 

[Netopia]

For normal, everyday sort of stuff, what is the advantage of running 64bit over 32bit in Linux? I've got an Athlon64 machine I could install a 64bit OS on, but I would have 1-2GB of RAM, so I don't need the added RAM space of 64bit. I don't run any huge databases or create feature length movies either.

So what is the advantage for the average user of going 64bit?

Joe

 

[Nothinman]

So what is the advantage for the average user of going 64bit?

When I got my AMD64 system I looked at it from the opposite perspective, i.e. what would I lose by installing the AMD64 port of Debian and the only thing I've run into so far is flash and not having that in my main browser is more of a feature than a problem. Most of the differences are under the hood so what you see in general is exactly the same, all of the same packages run exactly the same way on both architectures. Some stuff will be slower, some stuff will be faster so it's hard to make a judgement without looking at a specific process.

The ideal situation is a fully biarch distribution so that you can run a 32-bit system and then install any 64-bit packages that you might need. But that's not really doable since I don't think any distribution supports that too well if at all just yet. But right below that would be installing a standard i386 distribution and then installing a 64-bit kernel. That'll give you the physical memory support and the ability to run 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. Debian makes this simple by packaging an AMD64 kernel in their i386 distribution but I don't know if anyone else does.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

So what is the advantage for the average user of going 64bit?

When I got my AMD64 system I looked at it from the opposite perspective, i.e. what would I lose by installing the AMD64 port of Debian and the only thing I've run into so far is flash and not having that in my main browser is more of a feature than a problem. Most of the differences are under the hood so what you see in general is exactly the same, all of the same packages run exactly the same way on both architectures. Some stuff will be slower, some stuff will be faster so it's hard to make a judgement without looking at a specific process.

The ideal situation is a fully biarch distribution so that you can run a 32-bit system and then install any 64-bit packages that you might need. But that's not really doable since I don't think any distribution supports that too well if at all just yet. But right below that would be installing a standard i386 distribution and then installing a 64-bit kernel. That'll give you the physical memory support and the ability to run 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. Debian makes this simple by packaging an AMD64 kernel in their i386 distribution but I don't know if anyone else does.

Would the 32-bit apps you're running on the 64-bit kernel be able to address over 2G of RAM though? Or is this a higher level limitation in the 32-bit kernel?

 

[Nothinman]

Would the 32-bit apps you're running on the 64-bit kernel be able to address over 2G of RAM though? Or is this a higher level limitation in the 32-bit kernel?

On Linux each userland process gets 4G of VM with 1G of that reserved by the kernel by default so 3G is the default limit on a 32-bit system. If you run a 64-bit kernel the kernel doesn't have to share that address space so each 32-bit process gets the full 4G of VM.

 

[lousydood]

I use Debian AMD64 on a Core2 duo, no problems.

The only time I had an issue was obscure: I had to compile a *compiler* which could only output 32-bit x86, itself, and needed to bootstrap. I installed a compatibility library and it was ok.

 

[nyker96]

yes they are, but if you are willing to manual tweak I think you can setup almost any 32bit stuff inside 64bit env.

 

[trmiv]

I setup Ubuntu 7.10 i386 on my laptop (Core2Duo T7200 cpu) last night (switched from PCLinuxOS), now I'm debating on if I should remove it and put the 64 bit version on there.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: trmiv
I setup Ubuntu 7.10 i386 on my laptop (Core2Duo T7200 cpu) last night (switched from PCLinuxOS), now I'm debating on if I should remove it and put the 64 bit version on there.

sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic

 

[Fox5]

64 bit will give lower performance in most things (only slightly), a few compatibility issues, maybe slightly older packages, and large performance improvements on a very select few things.

Also, not all processors handle 64 bit the same. AMD fairs a bit better from the move to 64 bit than intel does (there are cases where intel loses more performance than amd, or amd gains performance but intel loses, or amd just gains more, generally 64 bit fairs better on amd, but it's no travesty on intel)

 

[DarkThinker]

For a while it has been the consensus to not go 64-bit unless you need to in most cases, because the benefits of the 32-bit base of both open and closed source programs outweighs any minute performance benefit one person might get from a move like that.

 

[tdawg]

Do you need 64-bit Linux to utilize 4gb of ram as Windows does, or is that a Windows-only issue?

 

[Bremen]

32bit linux will use the full 4GB, however each process only has (I believe) 3GB max.

 

[Nothinman]

Do you need 64-bit Linux to utilize 4gb of ram as Windows does, or is that a Windows-only issue?

It's a 32-bit Windows client-only issue, 32-bit Windows Server Enterprise can use all 4G just fine.

32bit linux will use the full 4GB, however each process only has (I believe) 3GB max.

If you're using a 64-bit kernel each 32-bit process gets the full 4G of VM.

 

[trmiv]

I went ahead and reinstalled Ubuntu 7.10 and switched to the AMD64 version. So far it's been just as smooth sailing as the i386 version was. I heard certain media players and flash can be an issue, but they have worked for me no problem so far. Is it any faster? I have no idea really, the only thing I do notice is large video files seem to launch more quickly than before. I haven't done any encoding yet so I can't comment on that. I don't do anything too hardcore though so I could have just stayed with the 32 bit version though, but this is cool.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: trmiv
I went ahead and reinstalled Ubuntu 7.10 and switched to the AMD64 version. So far it's been just as smooth sailing as the i386 version was. I heard certain media players and flash can be an issue, but they have worked for me no problem so far. Is it any faster? I have no idea really, the only thing I do notice is large video files seem to launch more quickly than before. I haven't done any encoding yet so I can't comment on that. I don't do anything too hardcore though so I could have just stayed with the 32 bit version though, but this is cool.

I've run the 64 bit version of linux since I got my first athlon 64. At the very beginning there were some growing pains, but now I don't notice any at all. Most flash works for me, .wmvs play fine, everything looks pretty smooth to me now.