# 32bits vs 64bits on new laptop

## fiolj

Hi, I am about to install gentoo on a new laptop with an i3 processor. I was wondering whether there are real advantages on installing a 64 bits system over a 32bits one.

Also, are there still glitches? If I recall correctly there use to be some problems with drivers or some programs on 64bits but I have not recent news. The laptop is for everyday use (browsing, docs, etc) but also for programming and testing (number crunching mainly). I would like to know opinions or previous experience since I've only used 32bits systems.

Regards,

          Juan

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## Aquous

My ~amd64 Gentoo system runs absolutely great. No issues whatsoever.

I'm by no means a computer programmer so what I say next may be complete nonsense, but I've heard that:

on the one hand, pointers are twice as large on 64 bit systems, so programs will consume more memory (though absolutely not necessarily twice as much, only programs which rely very heavily on pointers will eat a lot more)

on the other hand, 64 bit has more CPU registers available (it does, right?), so programs should run faster

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## gerard27

There's no advantage in installing 32 bits any more.

There are a few programs you might need that are 32 bits.

For those set the multilib use flag.

Gerard.

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## Veldrin

 *Quote:*   

> The laptop is for everyday use (browsing, docs, etc) but also for programming and testing (number crunching mainly)

 

This would vote in favor of 64bit.

How much RAM does it have? If it more than 3GB, then go for 64bit, if less you might as well go for 32bit.

IMHO 64bit is pretty stable, and no longer plagued by the issues you hint at.

Aquoros' point is valid. pointers are larger, but with that much RAM available, I think it is less of concern. 

The number of registers is solely dependent on the cpu used, and not on the code run on top. true, and corei7 optimized code may use more registers, than i386 optimized code, but this is to that fact the i386 does not know some of the registers. And those registers are only used in some (few) multimedia and scientific applications.

V.

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## Princess Nell

Be prepared for problems with flash on 64-bit.

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## fiolj

Thanks to all for your replies, it seems quite safe to go with 64 bits, I am not a big fan of flash but all (many at leas) sites use it extensively. Does anybody know how bad problems are? Are they fixable?

Since I am asking for advice: is there good reason to prefer a filesystem over others? I am currently using reiserfs but I did the choice several years ago without clear ideas...

Should I go with ext3/ext4 instead? I don't have  any special requirements.

Regards,

     Juan

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## myceliv

I don't know why people talk so much about problems with flash on 64. I've been using all amd64 since ~2007 and never had any  problems with 64 bit versions of flash. Since about 2008 nsplugin 32 bits have seldom given problems as long as re set them up or reinstall nspluginwrapper after a plugin version upgrade. Still there are long threads about problems. I guess I'm saying there are many more people not having problems using modern hardware and software and use 64 bit versions when you can.

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## Veldrin

I can confirm the statement of myceliv - flash is stable on 64bit. But you may (still) need to use the 32bit plugin with the nspluginwrapper. fortunately portage takes care of that. 

about filesystems: I haven't used reiserfs in some time on a 64bit system. And back then, when I used it, it was for partitions with small files (/usr/portage/ and /usr/src/ resp.).

As a general purpose filesystem I do still recommend ext4.

V.

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## mv

 *fiolj wrote:*   

> Since I am asking for advice: is there good reason to prefer a filesystem over others?

 

At least in theory, ext4 and reiser4 are currently the safest choice. Probably in some years, it will be btrfs. Since reiser4 is not in kernel, I would recommend to use ext4 despite it inherited many weaknesses from ext3. reiserfs is not supported too well: Who knows how long it will remain in the kernel, and also the reiser people are not interested in supporting it anymore. I would not recommend to use it. For things like /usr/portage or /usr/src there are things which are better suited like squashfs+aufs2.

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## cach0rr0

 *fiolj wrote:*   

> Thanks to all for your replies, it seems quite safe to go with 64 bits, I am not a big fan of flash but all (many at leas) sites use it extensively. Does anybody know how bad problems are? Are they fixable?

 

the flash issues are basically this:

Adobe updates flash fairly regularly, and while their linux plugin does lag a small bit behind the ones for Win/Mac, it's not so bad. 

However, often times these updates are security updates. 

And often times you will see a 32bit plugin released quickly, but not see a 64bit plugin for a good while after. 

Which in an ideal world wouldn't be a problem, because 32bit flash can run in a 64bit browser via nspluginwrapper. 

The rub, is that some people have had serious performance and/or stability issues with 32bit flash under nspluginwrapper

The symptoms are more severe for some than others. I personally have never had any problems that were too noticeable, but some people have, and you can find examples of them having these problems here on the forums. 

The problem, of course, goes away when Adobe releases a proper 64bit plugin. But as their update frequency is fairly high, some users eventually get annoyed by this. 

It's been considerably better as of late, but some folks are permanently soured on the whole flash/nspluginwrapper debacle - understandably so. 

Having said that, I'm a very web-heavy user, and do view heaps of flash video. It has never been a significant problem for me, at all. Even if it were, I would hardly consider that alone sound enough justification for running a 32bit environment on 64bit hardware. In the early days yes, the difference in stability and package availability between x86 and amd64 was drastic. Nowadays, it's virtually zero. So I would absolutely suggest going the 64bit route, and I've done so myself on every system I own or work on.

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## m0p

Honestly there's no reason not to go 64-bit now. As soon as Gnash/Lightspark supports iPlayer or Adobe makes a properly maintained 64-bit Flash, there won't even be a need for multilib any more unless you play lots of old games (e.g. full of 32-bit ASM, wine, closed-source binaries, etc).

Speaking of Flash, the 64-bit Flash crashes a lot, is incredibly out of date and is probably riddled with vulnerabilities. Personally I just use Opera (with it's own 32-bit plugin wrapper) and 32-bit Flash, and it's always worked fine.

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## Princess Nell

I must say a 64-bit system now works much better than the last time I tried a few years back (couldn't get compiz to work correctly). And I figured out earlier that I had no sound with flash on 64-bit because the speakers were muted ...

Now, if I could only figure out why 64-bit flash works on CentOS5 with ff 3.6, but not 4.0  :Wink: 

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## musv

 *Veldrin wrote:*   

> But you may (still) need to use the 32bit plugin with the nspluginwrapper. 

 

I haven't updated my system for several weeks now. So there could be a new version of flash. On my system:

- 10.2.159.1 -> works native 64bit

- 10.3.181.14 -> is 32bit and needs nspluginwrapper

That's why I'm still with 10.2. 

 *mv wrote:*   

> At least in theory, ext4 and reiser4 are currently the safest choice. 

 

I'm using Reiser4 for years now. I've never lost data. Additionally my portage-tree is stored in a Squashfs-image and mounted via unionfs. And with an upgrade trial to 2.6.38 I crashed my file-system after the first portage sync. It wasn't repairable. Fortunately with the rescue-cd I could mount it readonly at least and copy all data to an backup. Due to this issue I'm still working with 2.6.37.

Edward's response:

 *Edward Shishkin wrote:*   

> Yes, this is the old nasty bug: appearing objects
> 
> with inconsistent key order. I can not narrow down
> 
> this for now. If it is annoying, please fsck your
> ...

 

That was in the beginning of April. Since then there was no update on kernel.org.

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## 1Van

Hi.

About drivers. 

32bit kernel needed only for ancient hardware.

About user-level applications. 

We have minimum two solutions: "multilib userland" and "true 32bit chroot".

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