Ubuntu 9.04: 32-bit vs 64-bit benchmarks
In depth: Most Linux users run a 32-bit distro, and many of them run a 32-bit distro on a 64-bit computer. The question is, why? We put 32-bit Ubuntu 9.04 head-to-head with its 64-bit counterpart to see what difference it really makes, and whether old compatibility worries are justified.
Using TuxRadar as an example, we know that 77% of our visitors run a 32-bit Linux distro, which is astonishing given that 64-bit Linux has been around for so long. All modern Intel chips support 64-bit out of the box - that's all Core 2 chips and all Core i7 chips, plus most Xeons and many Celerons. On AMD's side, all Athlon 64, Turion 64, Phenom and Phenom II chips also support 64-bit. But although Linux was first out of the door with support for these chips, early implementations were plagued with problems and extensive use of compatibility layers was needed to make things work.
No longer. Thanks to extensive testing and feedback from the community, 64-bit Linux is as stable as 32-bit Linux, so there's little reason not to use it unless you have a need for a specific, 32-bit only app. Even Wine happily supports 32-bit Windows apps such as Microsoft Office or Half-Life 2 running on a 64-bit Linux installation, and cross-platform mainstays such as VMware, VirtualBox and Java have already been ported.
Trust us: we spend our days working for the world's finest Linux magazine, which means we test all sorts of crazy software on all sorts of crazy configurations, and 64-bit Linux really has improved a lot in the last three years. Honestly, if 64-bit wasn't up to mission-critical stability levels, do you really think Red Hat would dare to include it in its Enterprise Linux production line?
Why bother?
Of course, the other side of the coin is "if it's just as good for most users, why should 64-bit be used at all?" And the answer to that is "performance".
You see, for a long time Gentoo people have proudly said that compiling software by hand means you get something optimised for your CPU, and that's absolutely true - large chunks of Ubuntu are compiled for Intel 386 chips, for example. But x86-64 effectively provides a reset: x86-64 chips are guaranteed to include all of the i686 functionality plus SSE support, along with more processor registers, which means any program compiled for 64-bit is guaranteed to be optimised for your chip.
Once you accept that there's no stability or software difference to using 64-bit, the real question is, does it make any noticeable performance difference? To decide that, we ran a series of real-world tests using Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" on a fairly average computer to see just how 64-bit performs. We could have chosen any number of other distros - Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mandriva and more all have excellent 64-bit support - but we've got Ubuntu Jaunty installed on just about everything right now, having put it through lots of tests in the last few weeks, so it was just the most convenient!
The tests were:
- System boot time. We reduced the Grub timeout to 0, enabled automatic login, set Firefox to launch and load Google.com as its start page, and timed the system from pressing the power button to seeing the Google logo.
- Decompressing a tar.bz2 file. We used Linux 2.6.28 for this; it weighs in at 50.2MB.
- Compiling the kernel. Unsurprisingly, we used the freshly decompressed Linux 2.6.28. To reproduce this test, run "make menuconfig" then exit with the default settings and run "make". (Warning: this compiles a lot of functionality, so it will take some time to run.)
- Ogg encoding a WAV file. We used episode 6 of our podcast, which was 400MB in WAV format, encoding at the default quality (3).
- Power Flasher, which is an Adobe Flash benchmark.
- Google's V8 JavaScript benchmark using Firefox.
- Blender rendering using Blender Render Benchmark 0.2.
In short, we've tried to cover a range of tasks that everyday users will be interested in, then put it all together in graph form for people with short attention spans.
Our test machine was the most "standard" thing we could find - a Dell Optiplex with a dual-core Intel Core 2 running at 2.13GHz with 2GB RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro with the restricted drivers as provided by Ubuntu.
The results
Unsurprisingly, boot time doesn't really vary depending on your CPU compilation - the tiny difference is small enough to be safely ignored.
bzip2 is a very common compression format on Linux, but 64-bit makes only a small dent in the extraction speed.
Compiling a super-sized Linux kernel took over an hour in 32-bit mode (64 minutes, to be precise), but 59 minutes in 64-bit, knocking five minutes off the time - a nice bonus, but nothing to shout about.
Converting from WAV to Ogg is one area that has clearly been optimised for 64-bit processors, running at almost twice the speed.
Adobe produces only a 32-bit version of Flash that must be run through a Linux compatibility layer. That layer is flawless in terms of stability, but it does slow things down a bit as can be seen. To show you the future, we ran Adobe's latest 64-bit Flash 10 alpha release, which you can see provides a healthy performance boost.
Firefox's Javascript performance gets a 13% performance boost under Google's V8 Benchmark.
This one is a no-brainer: 3D rendering is an easy win for 64-bit processors because it's so heavily CPU bound.
Is it worth it?
Putting aside the issue of Flash for a moment, moving from 32-bit to 64-bit is pretty much painless. In fact, you can't tell the difference without running uname -a in a terminal - all the programs you're used to are likely to run identically, and ultimately it's only a matter of time before x86-64 becomes the standard.
Then there's Adobe Flash. Not only is it pretty much ubiquitous on the web, but it's also completely closed-source - Gnash, the free software project that aims to replace Flash, is such a long way away that it just isn't an option for everyday users. Adobe has said that it intends to release 64-bit Flash for Flash 11, so until then you must either install the 32-bit build and suffer slightly degraded performance or go for the 64-bit alpha build and handle updating it yourself.
Although we certainly wouldn't recommend average users to use that 64-bit alpha, we should at least say that it worked just fine for us in our tests - don't let its "alpha" tag fool you into thinking it will take down your desktop.
At this point, using a 64-bit distro is rather like enabling hyperthreading on your CPU - you get a free performance boost for your PC, and if that means you can put off upgrading it for another six months then it's an easy win. As we said earlier, it's a nice bonus. Sure, 5-10% isn't a lot, but when it's across your whole desktop and comes at no cost, why not? If you do use an application that isn't in Ubuntu's repositories, check around first to see if other users have any experience of running it in 64-bit.
Have your say
Here's where you come in. If you're running a 32-bit distro on a 64-bit chip, what's stopping you from making the switch? Is there a specific app that isn't ready? Have you had tried in the past and had problems? Or is it just not something you care about?
We asked our Twitter followers what was holding them back from using a 64-bit distro - here's what they had to say...
- aricg: Mot every program has a 64bit version, or its buggy I never saw a big speed difference for personal use.
- Edwards80: Occasional annoyances/compatibility issues outweigh the, as of yet, small benefits.
- DilbertDave: Using 32bit Ubuntu. I'd be worried about 64bit driver availability. It's flaky in Windows in my experience.
- cavang: I am using a 32 bit one because 64 bit doesn't bring any advantage at all (I have 2GBs ram) and 32 bit works perfectly for me.
- nine_L: Utter ignorance!
- Muzer0: This used to apply to me until today, so I'll answer: Pure ignorance. I expected it to be as bad as Win for 64-bit. I was wrong.
- asmodaous: For me I play wow through wine and I hear there is no 64bit version.
- gmclean: Flash is not yet 100% awesome, is it? Java's basically there. I also have some interesting issues with playing videos. I use Deb64.
- tweetsponge: With 4g or less of memory and a server kernel i just don't see any real need or motivation via features to go 64-bit.
Send us a message @tuxradar/Identi.ca or @tuxradar/Twitter with your views on Ubuntu 9.04 and we'll put the best here.
Disclaimer: the TuxRadar server runs Ubuntu 8.04 with x86-64. Is nice!
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Your comments
Debian 64bit
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 1:42am
Debian 64bit is running fine on both my desktop and laptop :)
Is 64 bit Flash Alpha stable enough?
Quake (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 2:59am
My only worry is Flash 10 64bit Alpha. On my free time, I spent a lot of time viewing flash videos and if it's not stable then... I don't think I'm gonna switch.
Flash is pretty good
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 4:45am
I can't wait for Flash in 64 bits. I exclusively use it on my 64 bit systems without any problems.
64 bit support in Linux very mature. Another advantage is that 64 bit OSs can see more than 3 gigs of Ram, 32 bit OSs can see up to 3 gigs of Ram only.
running 64bit since jaunty alpha 4
Jojo (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 6:17am
On my Thinkpad with 4gigs of RAM it works flawlessly. The only problem for now was to look for hacked 64bit version of Gears. Apparently it works as fine as Google branded Gears in 32 bit.
64-bit since 2007
Nicola (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 7:50am
I've been running the 64-bit version of Ubuntu since 7.04, and the only major problem I had was with flash.
That answers my question
Huw (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 8:42am
Thanks for this. I made the switch to 64-bit earlier this year and have been rather perplexed by the complete lack of performance improvements. At least now I know it's not just me!
Flash
Muzer (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 9:35am
I don't know what you guys are on about. Maybe it's just me, or flash (at least flash + opera) is _more_ stable on 64-bit! Flash used to crash opera 1 in 3 times and I had to kill operapluginwrapper to get opera back, but I've just been browsing on youtube on my installed-yesterday Kubuntu 9.04 amd64 and haven't had a single crash!
64-bit since 2007
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 9:40am
I agree with Nicola. I had few problems at begging but today i don't see reason why would i use 32bit..
Ohhh.. I tried 64bit on my Atom and didn't work :(
Pity Atom is not 64bit...
Thanks for your work. I m
Sid (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 9:59am
Thanks for your work. I m interested in XviD video encoding. Ogg encoding shows a real boost. But it would be nice if you had a done a video encoding test. I tried a Xvid encoding test with 64-bit kubuntu and 32 bit Vista (using Avidemux), the difference was not dramatical though 64 bit had lesser encoding time. Anyway I will go for the 64 bit version based on your test. Flash 64-bit alpha is quite stable so far in my experience.
64-bit Flash is stable
Antony_256 (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 12:18pm
I have been using 64-bit flash alpha since the day it came out.It was for me far more stable than the wrapped 32-bit "stable" version.
I'm using 64 bit since
raducu (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 12:44pm
I'm using 64 bit since Ubuntu 7.04 (actually my first Linux) from the moment I brought my HP 6715s notebook. There are some problems with flash (sometimes I have to restart Firefox because the flash movies will not be visible) but I can live with it. Don't know why but I hate flash (and Java which I don't install at all).
I know lot of people being afraid of 64 bit. I'm happy with 64 bit (now I'm using Ubuntu 9.04) and if some program hasn't 64 bit version I find an alternative. But every good program has a 64 bit version ;)
Not all benchmarks look so good
veriservus (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 1:07pm
I work with Ruby on Rails and just yesterday I did some tests on Ubuntu 8.10 32bit, Ubuntu 9.04 64bit and FreeBSD 7.1 64bit. The 64bit Ubuntu is 2 times slower than 32bit. FreeBSD 64bit is 4 times slower than Ubuntu 8.10 32bit. I am not sure what causes so big differences, for now I am sure that the bigest performance bottleneck is in the databases (I used MySQL and Postgresql). Any ideas?
I switched between 32 and
Anonymous T-Shirt collector (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 1:44pm
I switched between 32 and 64bit ubuntu a few times due to lack of 64bit compatability but have now stuck to 64bit since 9.04 alpha5. Only issue is BBC iplayer and AIR1.5. So I use a 32bit virtual box for bbc downloads. 64 bit feels quicker and that's what counts even if measurement is not conclusive.
Good article
Rhakios - April 25, 2009 @ 6:53pm
Ah yes, benchmarks which confirm everyday experience always make for a good article.
I've been using 64-bit since not long after the magazine had it's guide to building a 64-bit box, some years ago, and I've found that it's oggenc that has shown the eye-popping improvement possible with the right sort of 64-bit process.
I'm using 64-bit since
The Penguin! (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 7:07pm
I'm using 64-bit since Ubuntu 8.04 (because I have 4gb RAM), I had some problems with flash from official repositories some time ago. But alpha version of 64-bit flash works fine, it's VERY stable. So far, I'm pretty happy with Ubuntu 64-bit version.
Capcha Crapcha
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 7:28pm
The sound player for the Capcha is not working correctly. It is playing movie clips instead of identifying the words. ??? useless.
Flash & no perceptible benefit
Michael M. (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 7:54pm
I've tried 64-bit Debian and Ubuntu, and went back to 32-bit largely because of Flash. I found that frequently the 32-bit-on-64-bit thing was flaky, kind of how Flash was when it first came to Linux. It worked, mostly, but sometimes conked out or crashed my browser.
I could've lived with that just fine, but I didn't see any real benefit to running 64-bit. Your benchmarks notwithstanding, for most of my "real-world" computer usage, it's just not a noticeable improvement. I'm not sitting around compiling software all day, or rebooting very often. 64-bit is by no means worse than 32-bit, but in the absence of any benefit I couldn't see putting up with the Flash flakiness. I'll wait some months before I check it out again.
Is it possible to add the 64
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 7:57pm
Is it possible to add the 64 bit multimedia files , not included with the normal download
Harry Xray
64 Bit on i7
earthforce_1 (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 8:41pm
Your comments about 64 bit ubuntu being optimized for 686 and above may be the only thing (other than time) stopping me from moving to Arch. (That was one of the most compelling reasons)
I run 64 bit because I have more than 4G (12G on the i7 I am using to type this actually) of RAM, and at least some of my PCs on my home LAN are AMD. I hope more of the world moves to 64 bit as the 4G ceiling starts to become a problem, so these nagging compatability issues go away.
lol, anon penguin having
drumstyx (not verified) - April 25, 2009 @ 10:19pm
lol, anon penguin having trouble with captcha, the movie clip you hear is what it's asking you to type in, different than the text version
64 is painless, until you need to run 32 bit apps...
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 26, 2009 @ 6:46am
Mostly I'm thinking of Adobe AIR. I've never had as many problems running any software as I had trying to get that to run on 64bit ubuntu 9.04, and all that mostly for twhirl. Sad. Lib32 stuff was all messed up, had to set up gnome-keyring whatever in a particular way, even using apt-get and getlibs I still was missing the necessary dependency to let any air app access the web after I got everything else working (the lib32nss-mdns package, which I wouldn't have guessed on my own without the random forum post I read that informed me of this.)
Anyway. Kind of a ymmv, but I think this is pretty common stuff for trying to install most 32 bit programs on amd64 ubuntu and there still are many important things not supported in 64 yet. That said, I am still running the amd64 version. Heh.
Few experiences with 64 bit Linux
d4v1dv00 (not verified) - April 26, 2009 @ 3:26pm
I tried:
Ubuntu 8.04 x64, Mandriva 2009 x64, and a few more it was a few things bugging me and now i m back in 9.04 x86 since intrepid:
1. Flash
2. Java
3. Some utilities
4. Games
5. Music tools
6. Codec
I use distro 64 under ubuntu
BoSSi (not verified) - April 26, 2009 @ 3:43pm
Works for me and I'm pretty happy!
**Resistance is Futile**
BoSSi
capcha
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 26, 2009 @ 8:27pm
Drumstyx - They were looong clips, much more than a cople of words, but it's gone now, thanks to the staff for taking it off!.
Back to the topic, I had wondered if I was missing out on anything by sticking with 32 bit. Since it is working great for me there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to take the risk breaking things unless I want to start doing more cpu-intensive tasks or add more RAM.
64 Bit Rocks!
TGM (not verified) - April 27, 2009 @ 11:49am
I have been using 64-Bit Kubuntu since Intrepid, and I've seen it become more and more stable - it's worth noting that if you have a 64 bit capable PC you're more than capable of running any flash version without a problem - a benchmark is worthless in this respect. Jaunty is perfect for everything d4v1dv00 suggested as a failure. Just install medibuntu w64codecs and libdvdcss2, then kubuntu-restricted-extras and everything is set!
I've just upgraded to a Q8200, and Linux flies like nothing I've ever seen before. I just wonder how an i7 would run...
Anyone want to benchmark one for me? :D
Partly painfull
stordo (not verified) - April 27, 2009 @ 8:55pm
On Ubuntu 32 bit Opera ran "out-of-the-box" with flash, on 64 bit I save myself the pain trying to get it working. Also as a "noob" I spend my whole weekend getting yafaray to run with blender. Nevertheless, as this is a rendering machine the time was worth it, now everything runs as fast as lightning.
Not all that shines is gold
zoyo (not verified) - April 28, 2009 @ 11:35am
Alas, Skype would not install at all on 64 bit.
Printers?
Civint (not verified) - April 28, 2009 @ 2:00pm
I'm using the ubuntu 64 jaunty release, and my only two complaints/noticeable differences are that my hp printer drivers arent available in 64 bit flavour...however, running dpkg with --force-architecture fixed that and now it works fine!
Also, flash is a bit slower than it had been but I look forward to the newer release of it for 64 bit linux!
All I can say is that linux really feels like it's leading the way in using 64 bit (it's so painless!)
Nice Work
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 29, 2009 @ 2:59pm
Nice work. But in the graphics, the colors should be green for 64 bits and red for 32 bits, to look like "good" vs "bad".
64bit does not boot
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 29, 2009 @ 7:20pm
64bit 8.10 and 9.04 does not boot on my system with error:
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/... does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
BusyBox v1.10.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.10.2-2ubuntu7) built-in shell (ash)
Did anyone get have this problem?
8.04 and old work fine.
Java-based development tools
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 29, 2009 @ 7:30pm
It seems that nowadays everything in the opensource development wolrd is java-based. I haven't been able to run neither Eclipse nor Netbeans on 64 bits (Ubuntu 8.*, OpenSuse 11.* or Fedora 10) for more than several minutes (yes, that's minutes!!!).
64 Bits is the Sh**!
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 29, 2009 @ 8:45pm
ran 64 bit in Intrepid and Jaunty(with ext4) and good to go. 64 bit Flash alpha works without a hitch. installing it is even simpler: download and extract it, then go to home folder/.mozilla. mozilla is a hidden folder so enable hidden view in file browser if using file browser. then create folder called 'plugins' in the .mozilla folder and copy/move the flash plugin to that folder. that's it. restart firefox.
64-bit ext4 Ubuntu 9.04
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 30, 2009 @ 1:45am
I used 32 bit for the longest time, and I figured I'd make the plunge with the new release. About a month ago I installed Jaunty beta with ext4 filesystem and 64-bit OS. The biggest thing holding me back before this was the flash horror stories.
I, for one, can say that I haven't had any problem with 64-bit flash. I installed 64-bit just like I would 32-bit. The only issue I have had thus far is one 32-bit program I wanted to install, but I was too lazy to hunt down the 32-bit dependencies. However, the rest of the programs I wanted ran smoothly in 64-bit. I don't have any problem running 32-bit apps in WINE either.
Been at it for a while
Silver Tuxer (not verified) - April 30, 2009 @ 8:59am
since nov. 2005, actually - running Mandrake/Mandriva Linux (Mandriva started providing 64-bit builds around that time).
I wanted to test the 64-bit environment, and since Linux has 32-bit compatibility written right inside the kernel, it's easier to merely roll back to a 32-bit build instead of dealing with wrappers etc.
64-bit is faster - especially on Athlon64 processors. Although Mandriva builds most packages (except the default kernel now) with the i586 instruction set, stuff like desktop managers and the X server did have a noticeable lag in reaction time that was wholly absent from the 64-bit build (I tried both at the time).
But, the real eye opener was the day when I wondered why a DVD-to-Xvid compression took the same time on my 64-bit OS than it did on my dual-boot Windows XP partition, that used Koepi's Xvid optimized build - and I decided to rebuild the Xvid package myself (we were at Xvid 1.1.3). When I saw the message "no ASM compiler found. Using reference C implementation", I knew where the problem was.
Indeed, installing YASM (for 1.1.3, 1.2.1 uses NASM) and recompiling the Xvid library provided 300% performance of the original Xvid build! Yup, three times faster - the use of i686 instructions, SSE1, 64-bit etc. brought quite a boost indeed.
Version 1.2.1, which is SMP-capable and 64-bit improved further increased that boost, and previous high quality encodings that took a night to proceed now go almost real-time.
Yes, I had problems with Flash; at first, I merely installed 32-bit Firefox (worked great, but it was a bit of a pain on system updates); when I tried nspluginwrapper, it couldn't stop crashing (exit the wrapper), so I made do with Gnash and swfdec for a while - until Adobe released the second alpha of Flash 10 for 64-bit, which I've been happily using for quite a while.
But, on the whole, having been using 64-bit for almost 4 years now, I'd say that right now, installing 64-bit is all good with no bad.
printers
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - April 30, 2009 @ 9:10pm
Printers?
Civint (not verified) - April 28, 2009 @ 2:00pm
dpkg with --force-architecture fixed that and now it works fine!
Can you elaborate how you fixed the problem? my firefox in 9.04 64bits is not recognizing the printer.
What about the hardware?
Lenny Penguin (not verified) - May 1, 2009 @ 4:25am
Hi
Been running 64-bit linux in various flavors for the past 3 years on some of my systems, 32-bit on a few and 2 (a laptop and a desktop) with uSoft.
I have been trying to find schematics and timing diagrams for the various motherboards I use (eg ASUS P5E WS Pro, Abit KN9 SLI.) I'd like to see, as understanding of performance comparisons, whether the underlying hardware was optimized for 64-bit or 32-bit software. Or was it just designed without thought to either?
As a gross example, it's pretty easy to design a "64-bit" board that uses a 64-bit processor and 64-bit instructions and data yet uses a 32-bit bus for the fetches/puts (the whole word is clocked in chunks.) And it's a heck of a lot cheaper to produce. (This type of design is not unusual outside the pc industry where design is specification driven and it's not bad.)
In trying to analyze all the specifications and performance test results, I just can't help but wonder if, as the computer storage industry redefined 1 gigabyte (1073741824) as 1000000000 bytes, the pc hardware manufacturers have redefined 64-bit motherboards simply as being able to use a 64-bit capable CPU?
RE: 64 is painless, until you need to run 32 bit apps...
Scar (not verified) - May 1, 2009 @ 2:33pm
Slamd64 is the most stable 64-bit distro, and it runs 32- bit apps right out of the box.
It's an unofficial port of Slackware to the 64-bit architecture and Fred Emmott does a great job updating this. He cross compiled Slackware by scratch, so he made sure to build in FHS-compliant 32-bit compatibility, so you can imagine how stable it is running both 32- and 64- bit programs.
Ubuntu x64
Anonymymous Penguin (not verified) - May 1, 2009 @ 11:56pm
I recently bought a whole bunch of cheap RAM, so now I have 6 gigs and an AMD Athlon x2 4400+ with my 9800 GT. Not a wickedly powerful computer, but it's fine. Vista wasn't doing the computer justice as it was2-bit. So I decided to go for x64 Ubuntu, because I wanted to use my RAM. I just upgraded to Jaunty the other day, and, assuming I'm not doing anything stupid with virtual machines, my system is stable, fast and awesome.
Ubuntu 9.04 x64
Anonymymous Penguin (not verified) - May 3, 2009 @ 4:47am
I use 64 bit for ALL of my linux needs. I haven't had a problem with drivers, flash (yay Flash 10 x64 Alpha!), I get to utilize ALL 4GB of ram and it's overall very stable for me!
Not quite good
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 3, 2009 @ 10:50pm
I "hate" 64 bit not only because it lacks a stable version for Flash, but also it has no version for AIR (tweetdeck, twirl). Also wine does not work as well. Espacially with printers. For common users or servers is quite ok to have 64 bit OS-es. For me linux 64 bit is not yet an option because the speed is not that different, but you get some annoying compatibility issues. Also 9.04 (either 32 or 64 bit) sucks for my lovely AIR apps, as the tray does not properly work. If you minimize certain apps you have no way to get them back (they should appear in tray , as in 8.10, but they don't, still checking why). Certain firefox extensions also do not work on 64 bit OS-es. So for the moment 32 bit 8.10 is the best I can get. Ok, i recognise I do have also 9.04 (32 bit) on my computer (also a kubuntu 8.10 64 bit). But my main os is still 8.10 32bit :). Guess in a couple of months 9.04 will be mature enough to safely switch.
How about 32-bit Wine in 64-bit environment?
Curious Penguin (not verified) - May 4, 2009 @ 10:42am
Did you try to run 32-bit applications (especially games) through the 32-bit Wine in 64-bit Linux? What about compatibility and speed issues? Was Wine running faster or slower... or was it running at all? Was running 32-bit Windows games successfull?
I run both OpenSuSE 11.1 and
NomadeWolf (not verified) - May 5, 2009 @ 2:13pm
I run both OpenSuSE 11.1 and Ubuntu 9.04 and both 64bit. There are some minor issues, but i think it's worth the effort, because 64bit IS the future, IS faster, and as more people change to 64bit, the process will speed up.
Also, i don't understand why even bother doing 32bit software/os... All new processors support 64bit. And anyone can buy new 64bit system for a very low price, if their old systems don't run 64bit, and will probably get a faster system...
Apple changed already to 64bit without their users even noticing the change. I really can't understand why all the stalling...
64 bit Ubuntu here
avoura - May 6, 2009 @ 11:16pm
I use 64-bit Ubuntu on my AMD64 PC. If I need to run a 32-bit app that will not run, I can run it instead inside a 32-bit virtual machine using Virtual Box. Overall I think 64-bit is better, but we need more specific 64-bit software.
Language support
Clinton Thomas (not verified) - May 8, 2009 @ 10:50pm
I will stick with 32 for now, tried 64 and get extremely little language support. So when the Language packs catch up and they start porting the translations over to 64 then I will switch.
I must be quite stupid
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 9, 2009 @ 12:15pm
Thanks so much for all this useful information.
My name should be Anonymous Stupid instead of Anonymous Penguin.
I have a Athlon 64 under the desk running a 64 distro.
Also, I recently bought a "budget" celeron T1600 laptop wich runs a i386 install.
I'm not a programmer at all, learned Linux by myself for 3 years, and feel a complete IDIOT :
Yes, allways believed 64 bits were for AMD-64 only !!!!
If I understand well what you wrote :
"- All modern Intel chips support 64-bit out of the box -"
I suppose I could benefit from a 64 bits system on this laptop.
This shows what a total amateur is up to.
Thanks for allowing anonymous comments !
64bit FTW!
ME, not you lol XD (not verified) - May 11, 2009 @ 9:30am
I recently upgraded from 8.10 32bit to 9.04 64bit and love it. I found no issues at all with flash, and since almost all linux apps are 32 and 64 bit (not in windows, thats why i use XP 32 bit for games) the change was a real improvment. And the new ext4 filesystem helped my computer as well, so it benchmarks in everything(cpu,gpu,encoding,flash,games etc..) 54% faster.
Firefox: better in 64-bit
Anonymous Greek Penguin (not verified) - May 11, 2009 @ 7:54pm
A few days ago I installed the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 9.04, and I find the system even more stable than the 32-bit 8.10 I had before. Firefox is a pleasant surprise: I always had issues (in other 32-bit distros as well) when opening multiple tabs, with the CPU and RAM peaking with no obvious reason. These problems just don't exist for me in the 64-bit version. The only problem is that the MySpace Music Flash Player doesn't work. Youtube is OK, though.
64Bit
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - May 22, 2009 @ 3:41pm
Ubuntu 9.04 64Bit run nice without any problem for me. I am happpy with it. It even play back quicktime trailer better then windows vista 64bit.
Ubuntu 9.04 64bit is a
Hellas United (not verified) - June 2, 2009 @ 12:46am
Ubuntu 9.04 64bit is a beauty !
Very stable , very quick , no problem at all.
It's the best os i have ever used !
I can't play quicktime streaming
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - June 2, 2009 @ 12:13pm
I just can't play quictime streaming videos from Apple Trailers :(
It works fine in 8.04 but when I come up to 9.04 It is not working anymore... I'm trying to use xine and mplayer plugins with the same result.
Then, Ubuntu 9.04 is not working well as 8.04, Brightness isues, externatl keyboard isues... hope I don't actualize but now is over :(
Skype hanging occasionally
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - June 28, 2009 @ 2:18pm
Does nobody here have problems with skype under 64bit? My Flash is alright it only crashes (gray box instead of vid) sometimes when I open multiple tabs with flash vids and then close some of them...
But it will always work in other browsers...
Don't blame User's here.
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 2, 2009 @ 2:55pm
"Most Linux users run a 32-bit distro, and many of them run a 32-bit distro on a 64-bit computer. The question is, why? ..."
Don't BLAME the user's here.
"OpenSolaris" offers pretty-well one distro to fit both cpu needs. If a 64-bit capable cpu, ... is detected it installs 64-bit, if 32-bit cpu, ... is detected it installs 32-bit.
All the Linux Distro maker's should be doing the same now.
In fact on Linux Mint's site , even the latest Linux Mint 7 offers a 64-bit version at the bottom of the page and then they warn the user that 32-bit might be more stable ... than 64-bit.
Like WTF !!!?
Like I said, don't blame the user. It's the Linux Distro maker's who are ALL at fault here.
Skype problems
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 2, 2009 @ 6:29pm
I also had problems with Skype on 64 bit Ubuntu Jaunty. I obtained it via the Medibuntu repositories. The main problems I experienced were periods of hanging after a few mins of talk, then the other person could hear me but I couldnt hear them, Skype refused to close down properly also I couldnt alter my display pic in fact it wouldnt show one! All these problems disappeared when I went back to 32 bit Jaunty.
Skype problems on 32 bit too
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 4, 2009 @ 8:46pm
Skype on 32 bit Ubuntu 9.04 hangs after 10 mins or so of voice chat, program has to be closed by force quit.
f
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 5, 2009 @ 10:02am
f
I run the 64 bit version but I'll not, anymore
André Taiar (not verified) - July 6, 2009 @ 1:04pm
The 64-bit flash plugin runs me into craziness and I'll surelly not want it, anymore...
I don't use blender neither OGG conversion... Extract and boot fast is good, but it's not the bigger of my problems.
C programming is such worse in 64bit version too... I'll have to rebuild all the things... Argh...
flash is out for 64 bit!
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 11, 2009 @ 3:58am
flash is out for 64 bit!
Am I 64?
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 14, 2009 @ 2:45pm
Does 'i686' output from uname mean 64 or 32 bit?
"ed@ubuntu:~$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.28-13-generic #45-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jun 30 19:49:51 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux"
Sorry to be thick.
;-)
Needs to be clicky
Beginner (not verified) - July 14, 2009 @ 11:57pm
I run 64bit on my laptop and desktop and 32 bit on my kids system since its single core. However I will load my inlaw's new dell laptop with 32 bit since its easier for beginners. I have a tough time with sudo commands being a rookie and pretty much just copy and paste what I can find off the net, the inlaws would lost.
Am I 64 bit question answered
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - July 16, 2009 @ 12:53am
@ Am I 64? No i686 is 32 bit
Ubuntu 9.04 x64 rocks
Basilf (not verified) - July 27, 2009 @ 2:24pm
Been a Linux fan for years and rand x32 on my Dual Core x64 doe a few months, after getting my Dell Inspiron 1525 pre-installed, I decided to take the plunge to x64 purging the Dell version and installing 8.10 then 9.04 just one word WOW. I have it on both my Laptop and my Mini 910 what a total joy. I tried Windows XP x64 and spent a week finding @$@#$#$ drivers Dell was totally 1000 useless,'We just support 32 bit' I gave up the XP install and carefully placed the MS brand CD in a towel and snapped in half my MS inventory is now '0' end of frustration. eof now has totally new meaning.
Issues with 64bit ubuntu
Anonymous Penguin8 (not verified) - July 29, 2009 @ 1:28am
I loaded Ubuntu 9.04 64bit on my new AMD phenom 2 550be and it seems I'm getting some very,very slow response time that i wasn't getting with 32bit. If i'm copying a file and try to do anything else... i mean anything, firefox takes like 1 minute to open or terminal or anything... very strange stuff. I was thinking maybe it was something with powernowd but i uninstalled that...so i'm perplexed......when i do a /cat/proc/cpuinfo it says it shows 800mhz and it is supposed to show 3.1ghz and the cache shows as 512kb (L2) which is right but the 6mb (L3) doesnt' show up in there....
Driver issues
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - August 4, 2009 @ 4:38am
I had some trouble with drivers in my toshiba e105, then I stepped back to ubuntu 32bit version
64 bits own
Penguins Anonymous (not verified) - August 26, 2009 @ 4:02am
64 bit Gentoo no multilib (doesn't include 32 bit packages as installable) and no 32 bit elf support in my kernel. Everything is working great. Even the CAPTCHA thing is working. About to try 64 bit wine with (blegh) 32 windows programs (read: games).
Benchmarks lie
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - September 15, 2009 @ 11:56am
Its interesting that you never see benchmarks that use real network loads, because 64 bit loses badly.
If you're using your linux system as a web server, router, firewall or other network device, 64 bit is not a win. Small benchmarks fare well, but the larger code and larger structures result in more cache misses and lower performance at the network level.
Heard you can install the
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - September 18, 2009 @ 7:09pm
Heard you can install the 32bit Firefox under 64bit ubuntu 9.04, so does anyone know how to do this? I'm running 9.04 64bit, but I have Flash issues with all the browsers I'm running (done the Alpha Adobe thing already).
If you can set the OS to work with a 32bit app, that might solve a lot of headache.
I know for example that Apple's OSX is NOT fully 64bit, and Safari is running in 32bit mode and so it's kind of a hybrid 64bit/32bit OSX solution at the moment.
Perhaps Linux should do that for a while until all the app people catch up?
swich from 32 t 64
diml (not verified) - September 22, 2009 @ 8:29pm
How someone that is runing a 32 bit can switch to 64??
Problems with matlab
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - September 27, 2009 @ 1:03pm
I've tried to get Matlab running on my 64-bit ubuntu, but it just simply didn't work. So that's pretty much what made me go back to 32-bits, cause I need it for my work.
Problems with compiling from source with some 32bit software
Roger (not verified) - October 2, 2009 @ 4:37pm
Im working with 64bit debian right now,and for the most part I have not problems at all.
That said I have thought of going back to 32bit becuase when trying to compile from source with some programs I run into 32bit library support issues, it is realy hard to get the 32bit libraries when running 64bit
student
madcow (not verified) - November 7, 2009 @ 6:29pm
I am thinking of switching back to 32 bit because Java performance on 64 bit is very slow. It is more obvious when you run IDE such as Netbeans.
Not going 64-bit on desktop
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - November 29, 2009 @ 1:20pm
Not going 64-bit on desktop ever unless I can afford more than 16Gb RAM. 32-bit PAE compiled kernel works for me all the time.
MySQL very slow on ext4 64 bit
Marcin (not verified) - November 29, 2009 @ 4:19pm
I've switched to Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit recently, did a fresh new install using ext4 as the file system, and was really shocked how my brand new Core i7 860 2.8 GHz was slower than Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz on my MacBook Pro. I too do Ruby on Rails dev, and all my specs, and cucumber tests were running really slow. After a day of investigation, it turned out that ext4 is the problem. Found another post on the net saying that MySQL runs slow on ext4, so I reinstalled my Ubuntu 9.10 on ext3 instead and just now I can tell I am running real Core i7. The box is flying now with 8GB of RAM ;-)
Apart from that, no other issues at all. No problems with flash, runs happily in Firefox and Opera.
One good thing to know about
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - December 25, 2009 @ 9:45pm
One good thing to know about 64bit is that if you use a ADM CPU (At least Phenom II) it WILL crash if you have high file IO. I have two machines with different hardware that will freeze when ever I run too high file I/O for too long a time. Copying a 1TB disk full of data unto a raid does not work on any of these machines. I am not the only one having this problem but since the system just freeze you get no dumps or any indication to where the problem is and no one want to touch the problem or even pretend that it exists. It seems to be memory related when 100% memory is used the machines freeze.
SO, right not 64bit is unusable on AMD CPUS/chipsets.
Whatever
fchow8888 (not verified) - December 29, 2009 @ 3:07am
After reading this post and the replies I decided to give 64 bit Ubuntu a try on a Dell Inspiron laptop (AMD 64 dual core Athlon X2) worked right out of the box flawlessly, found all the drivers I needed, and seems to be more stable than the 32 bit version, which sometimes glitched on reboots. The only hiccup was I had to get the Flash 10 Alpha, which works fine on everything so far, including youtube.
been 64 since ages
fani (not verified) - December 29, 2009 @ 3:04pm
always used 64 bit,no worries,
tried 32 few times, didn't noticed big differences.
32 is vanilla
64 is darkChoco ;-)
Thanks
Sograph (not verified) - December 30, 2009 @ 5:37am
In short, 64bit Linux of most flavors, are worth trying.
I have always used Debian for my servers(E-mail Hosting, File, Clusters, etc...) and have been very happy with stability, speed, etc.... Was using XP Pro on my workstation the entire time(Hesitated because of Adobe InDesign). Decided to install Ubuntu 64bit to test and play around with on the same hard drive(dual boot with XP Pro). I haven't rebooted back into XP since(yeaher). Was thinking on trying 32bit, but after reading all of the comments and this article I'm not going to bother. I will be trying other flavors, but Ubuntu seems pretty nice and will leave it as my main OS until I find something better.
Thanks for some very useful information and comments.
What about extra memory usage under 64bit
Anonymous Coward (not verified) - January 3, 2010 @ 1:16am
The argument i've always heard for not using 64bit was the additional memory usage it requires. Since most computers do not have over 4G and memory is usually a limitting factor, I can see one opting to use 32bit to save on the additional space 64bit requires for the memory addresses.
There's absolutely no mention of this in the article or comments.
I've been running 64bit on my t61p for a while. After doing some distro research in the past for my VPS server (512m of mem), I decided to use 32bit because it would allow me more memory for running apache.
Now I'm ready to install another distro on my laptop and I am opting for a 32bit, not because I've had problems with 64bit, but because I want to save memory.
memory usage
happy linux guy (not verified) - January 9, 2010 @ 12:03am
I think most computers these days come with at least 4GB of ram. I just got a basic laptop, and it had 4GB. With 4GB of RAM, you really have to be doing a lot to use up all the memory. I can run a guest os with virtualbox and run mutliple os's as vm's at the same time, and it handles it fine. With older computers, yeah, it's probably pointless to run 64 bit. But, all new computers should use 64 bit OS's.
some applications are still buggy on 64bit
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - January 9, 2010 @ 11:01pm
There are still some applications don't work on 64bit, especially those not used wildly.
horriible wars with flash...
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - January 12, 2010 @ 7:50pm
It is killing me, I have no idea how do you all cope with that, but flash doesn't work on that version.
Its failures are often and random, there is totally no way I'll switch back to the 64 bit, and I really advise all the new to Ubuntu, never switch to 64 bit, you'll loose your life...
Why I am still using 32
Sandroid (not verified) - January 15, 2010 @ 2:11pm
I have not made the switch because I am in college and there is a local 32 bit repo. Otherwise, to update the system, I will have to use the restrictive and poor 100 Mb per day connection
I'm moving up.
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - January 19, 2010 @ 11:53pm
I think that 64 bit versions are pretty painless. I have 6 GB of RAM, and with limitations of the 32 bit versions coming on us fast, I think that for many of us, it is time to switch. I'm moving up.
_
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - January 31, 2010 @ 12:05pm
64bit Ubuntu 8.04 runs pretty good on my HP nx6325, only flash at times becomes with "white screen", then I need to reload the page in browser and starts to work again. Other stuff is working very good.
Be careful!
Netogallo (not verified) - February 3, 2010 @ 5:52am
Although 64bit increases cpu performance, it uses up double amount of RAM. So if you have less than 2GB of RAM, stay with 32 bits or performance will heavily decay since the system will run out of RAM!
@Netogallo
Azu (not verified) - February 22, 2010 @ 3:16am
No, only pointers do (64bit pointers vs 32bit pointers), which make up an absolutely trivial amount of memory usage. In the vast majority of programs the difference in memory usage should be <1%.
RAM!
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - March 25, 2010 @ 10:53pm
64 BIT uses more RAM so if you have less then 4 GB dont waste your time or your performance will be about an 8088 from 1980s.
AdobeAir is a reason for me to stay 32
Stefan (not verified) - June 3, 2010 @ 11:01pm
BBCIplayer and few others apps don't work well on Ubuntu 64.
:)
64 Bit sucks memory but its good
richard King (not verified) - June 14, 2010 @ 2:39pm
Hay .. 64 bit takes a hell lot of resources than 32bit. Try running 64bit Ubuntu(my beloved) on quad core AMD64 (x4) and you will understand. Even a server flavor take a whoop lot of memory.
I had to drop that for my new server dev. and use 32bit. Check it out.
64bit is cool but you need more resources than the whole STATE needs against the terrorist out there.
Its a fact.
686 optimization? gimp?
ferric (not verified) - June 26, 2010 @ 8:50pm
thanx for the benchmarks. in future i'd like to see something similar including a distro compiled for 686 performance optimization.
a gimp benchmark would be nice too.
might also be nice to use 4 gigs of RAM to see the way memory is allocated makes any difference.
Old computers du! otherwise
Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - June 27, 2010 @ 12:49am
Old computers du! otherwise we would stick with win7!!
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