64 bit Kubuntu

[marshallbanana]

I am currently looking at getting some new hardware and was just wondering if having a 64 bit processor (and running 64 bit Kubuntu) has anything much in the way of real performance benefits over a standard 32 bit setup? ie. Is it worth me spending the extra money to go 64 bit?

Also, does Kubuntu take much advantage of dual cores?

[sky]

Re: 64 bit Kubuntu

Hi,

64 bits has lack of support of flash for example, in fact I didn't notice anything else... In question of performance, I don't know if there's really big differences.
about dual core, the advantage is that if one core is used a lot you can go one doing something else...

Hope it helps.

[askrieger]

Re: 64 bit Kubuntu

Unless, you do the kind of work that requires 64 bits, (you'd know id you did) you won't notice very much advantage at this time. In part, because most software is still written for 32 bit machines. If you do use the larger word size, the speed advantage is only about 20% for computation intensive code and about 10% (or less) for normal tasks.

I suspect that dual core might be a bit more useful, IF (and that should be a very big if), you use code that is compiled for dual, or quad cores. At this point in time, I suspect that most code is not. In other words, using a multi-core 64 bit processor is just future-proofing at this time.

I was "forced" to buy a 64 bit machine a year or two sooner than I would have otherwise, because one of my computers died. At lest, as of Edgy, (almost) all software, except Flash, will run on 64 bits. Personally, I think the next website I see that uses Flash effectively will be the first one, so you're not losing very much by going with 64 bits even if Adobe never compiles Flash for 64 bits.

To summarize get a 64 bit, multi-core processor, if (a) you KNOW that you need it, or (b) you don't plan on buying another system for at least 2 or 3 years.

[marshallbanana]

Re: 64 bit Kubuntu

So in summary most of Kubuntu has not yet been recoded to take advantage of 64 bit and/or dual core?

[askrieger]

Re: 64 bit Kubuntu

If you're making the distinction between recoded and recompiled, then, I believe, that most applications have not been recoded to take advantage of either 64 bits or multiple cores. Of course, since I'm not a (K)Ubuntu developer, I don't know for sure. I'd really like to find out that I'm wrong.