[mdlug] Semi-OT: Another BIG WinVista misstep

[Michael Corral]

Wolfger a ecrit:
> On 5/10/07, Ingles, Raymond wrote:
>>  Linux has been 64-bit ready for more than a decade now
>
> Uh... define "Linux" and "ready". Sure, the kernel's been 64 bit and
> stable for a long time. If you define "Linux" as being an entire
> distro (and I do), then it's not quite perfect yet. I got an AMD 64 a
> couple years ago, and installed a 64-bit Linux distro
[snip anecdote]

You're talking about x86 64-bit systems. Linux has been running
smoothly on non-x86 64-bit systems for a long time. Ray mentioned the
old 64-bit Alpha port. And I've been running 64-bit Linux on Sun
UltraSPARC boxes since around 1999, with no problem. I guess how well
it works for you is a question of how well your distro was made.

> So if half the apps you regularly use are 32-bit, are you really
> running a 64-bit system?

Sure. Why wouldn't you be? Not every application benefits from being
64-bit. In fact, many apps would have worse performance if they were
64-bit:
"The cost of using 64bit operations throughout is huge. Unless a number
is bigger than 4294967296, the size of a 32 bit binary number, most of
the data is unused. This translates into effectively WASTING half your
main memory, memory bandwidth to the CPU and the CPU cache. This is a
huge performance hit."
(from AuroraLinux FAQ)

If you need an app to perform 64-bit math operations then yeah, the
app should be 64-bit. Things like math-intensive scientific
applications, large databases, and so on, where calculations are
being performed on huge numbers, would indeed benefit from being
64-bit. But xlogo wouldn't. :)

Michael