[Novalug] 32-bit || 64-bit

John Franklin franklin@elfie.org
Sat May 19 23:52:26 EDT 2007


On May 16, 2007, at 6:33 PM, Subba Rao wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I purchased a laptop (used) with the following processor on it:
>
> Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
>
> The system had 32-bit Vista on it.  Now I want to install Linux on  
> it.  I don't know the big difference in performance of a 32-bit vs  
> 64-bit OS.  What I know is that you could have more acres of memory  
> on 64-bit system.
>
> Before I download Linux, is this processor a 32-bit OR 64-bit  
> processor?  The tech support (Dell) person says that Intel  
> processors (for laptops) have 64-bit emulator....blah, blah, blah.   
> Like I am not confused enough by now...:-)
>
> If there is any hardware geek (positive compliment) here, could you  
> please enlighten the absolute mortals about the processors?   
> Particularly the one I have now.
>
> Thanks for any help.

In addition to the 64-bit memory space, there are a few performance  
enhancements that come with 64-bit.  Registers are larger, and IIRC  
there are a couple extra registers and CPU instructions, too.   
However, pointers are now 8 bytes instead of 4 bytes, so there is a  
bit more data to push around.  For most apps, the larger pointers are  
a fraction of the data the pointers reference, but for certain apps  
32-bit still wins (think large indexes built of pointers.)

Unless you want to get 64-bit street cred, stick with 32-bit.  NDIS  
wrappers for wireless drivers are easier to work with in 32-bit,  
Flash and the Sun Java plug-in for Firefox are still 32-bit only.   
There are ways to shim them in to a 64-bit system, but it's never as  
easy as with 32-bit.

jf
-- 
John Franklin
franklin@elfie.org
ICBM: 38º 56' 32.6"N 77º 24' 47.7"W Z+62m

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