[ltp] X200s, 4 RAM 64 bit or not

[Richard Neill]

On 18/06/14 15:07, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Hello
>
> I upgraded to 4 RAM and I am running Kubuntu 10.04, trinity with PAE
> enabled. I am thinking to switch to 64 bit, but since still the majority
> of applications is 32 bit I am not sure that it is worth the effort.
>
> Can somebody advice me please?

Hi Uwe,

In my view, yes you should upgrade. 64-bit gets you the use of some 
extra CPU instructions (notably more registers) which gives a 
significant boost; it also allows applications to have more than 4GB of 
memory (eg my T60p has the maximum 4GB RAM, but can also swap to an 8GB 
swapfile on SSD).

I've never seen a single instance of 64/32 incompatibility on Unbuntu in 
the last 3 years, not even with the weird things like skype and flash. 
The 32-bit library packages sort it all out seamlessly.

You can try the experiment by comparing 32- and 64-bit Live USB keys 
(but note that USB keys are always much slower than real-life).

The downside is that 64-bit apps use (slightly) more memory than 32-bit 
ones because the pointers are twice the size - but I think this is still 
a good tradeoff vs the extra CPU registers.

Best wishes,

Richard