Re: [gentoo-user] Which arch do I have ?

[Wael Nasreddine]

This One Time, at Band Camp, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> said, On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 03:05:20PM +0200:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008, Wael Nasreddine wrote:
> > Let's say this processor supports 64 bits, what whould I gain from
> > migrating to x86_64 I mean would it be faster??? I've never
> > owned/worked on a 64bit machine before so excuse my lack of knowledge

> > :)

> Please stop using the x86_64 nomenclature with respect to gentoo. Gentoo
> does not define this arch and has no such name - all 64 bit extended
> arches compatible with x86 are called amd64 on gentoo.

> The x86_64 name is used by Red Hat and other distros. There are all the
> same thing really, but using the wrong name in the wrong context clouds
> the issues and leads to vast side-threads asking question that have no
> answers and that accomplish nothing.

I'm sorry but I'm just used to call it this way, most of distros I
have tried in the past call it this way, anyway I'll try to memorize
it.

> You will not notice a speed increase with a 64 bit processor. You might
> be able to measure one but it won't really feel any different in real
> life. What you will notice are:

> 1. The annoyance of having to put up with 32 bit apps with no 64 bit
> equivalent
> 2. Apps can now see more than 3.1GB of memory per app, and can see it
> linearly. If you run a massive database this will be important to you.
> If you don't, you won't. Do you have more than 4G of RAM?

> So, the only good reason to move to amd64 is when you buy a 64 bit
> machine

I have 1G RAM and it's a laptop doesn't serve huge databases so I
guess despite if my CPU is 64 or 32 bits, I'll just stick with the 32
version, works great...

-- 
Wael Nasreddine
http://wael.nasreddine.com
PGP: 1024D/C8DD18A2 06F6 1622 4BC8 4CEB D724  DE12 5565 3945 C8DD 18A2

.: An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs,
   would never make a good program. (L. Torvalds 1995) :.