Live 9.5 - 64bit?

[Jay Vaughan (ibisum)]

> 
> 3.5 GB. That's the maximum amount of memory you can use on a 32-bits (Windows) system. Which is why any self-respecting system runs 64-bits these days.
> - Peter

Maximum RAM upper address limit on Linux 32-bit is 64GB, if you’ve got PAE enabled (36-bits of address space).  Max-per-process is still 4GB with PAE, though.

Its not therefore a case of 64-bit being ‘better than 32-bit’, its a matter of whether the application warrants the large-number scenario.  Like, really large numbers.  Sure, 64-bit OS’s have other advantages: larger word-sizes mean incremental changes to existing code-base can be ‘wrapped’ with new bolt-on features, but for the most part the 64-bit address spaces are ‘big-number’ territories.  If you switch to 64-bit, expect your filesystem requirements to also have an exponential flip or two.  64-bit apps can create big files fast..

My opinion: For Audio, 32-bit is fine.  Its just fine.  Even if I didn’t already use an OS that made the whole addressable-memory space question moot, I’d be quite happy with 4gigs of RAM for AudioAppBlah to do its thing.  Thats a lot of data.

However, there is a social factor: the companies are all ‘moving to 64-bit’ in lock-step with all the other players in that eco-system.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense that we just rampantly do it as consumers, though .. its not really us that need it.

;
--
Jay Vaughan
ibisum at gmail.com
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