More info about an eventual 64 Edition

[clem]

Hi,

Gcc is donating a 64 bit laptop and I've ordered a new 64 bit desktop. This is going to let me test more things and also eventually compile things in 64bits. I'll be able to appreciate the difference in speed between Gutsy 32 and Gutsy 64. If there's a real gain and time is on our side we might see a 64 edition in the Mint 4.x series.

If we don't go for 64 bits I'll use the horsepower and storage to get more involved in the packaging side of things and have more important packages maintained directly by us.

Clem

[maty1206]

TO Clem:

That's a wonderful new.

Thanks to Gcc for your donation to our maintainers.

Cheers

[scorp123]

... let me test more things and also eventually compile things in 64bits. ... we might see a 64 edition in the Mint 4.x series.

Need a beta-tester? I have a few AMD64-based SUN machines here in my office ... not really desktop machines, but for testing purposes they should be more than 'sufficient'

[alexander]

mint64, brilliant!

[clem]

scorp123: How about a little benchmark between Gutsy 32 and Gutsy 64? desktop-oriented (boot time, opening OO, opening firefox, quality of the codecs, inherent problems etc..). The big question being: "forget the fuss about 64x, is it actually worth it for a PC user with less than 4GB of RAM to run Gutsy 64 instead of Gutsy 32?, and is the gain worth enough for us to roll out a complete new edition and dedicate a lot of time to it?".

You asked for it

Clem

[scorp123]

scorp123: How about a little benchmark between Gutsy 32 and Gutsy 64? desktop-oriented (boot time, opening OO, opening firefox, quality of the codecs, inherent problems etc..).

OK ... As soon as the final version of Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy" is out I will try that. I'll need to grab a 'unused' SUN machine somewhere from our shop, but it should be possible. Some of my buddies here also have new Intel "Core 2 Duo" based laptops which according to their /proc/cpuinfo are 64-bit too (there is a "lm" flag => 'long mode' = 64-bit) so I might try to benchmark on one of those machines as well.

You'll just have to be patient. I am in the middle of a few projects here that take a lot of my time .... But I will keep you posted as soon as I can get hold of "Gutsy" CD's and one or two 64-bit machines, OK?

[clem]

Cool. I've just received the new Dell desktop so I'll benchmark as well as soon as I'm finished looking at Vista, seing why I hate it so much (I actually don't know yet) and what (if any) good ideas can be taken from it and implemented in Mint.

Clem

[scorp123]

as soon as I'm finished looking at Vista, seing why I hate it so much (I actually don't know yet)

Vista makes a brand-new Dual-Core Athlon X2 4000+ machine with 2 GB RAM feel like an old 486 33 MHz with only 4 MB RAM .... It sooooooooo totally slows things down it's amazing. And it has funny bugs all the time. Today in the office one of my colleagues tried to help one of those Windoze noobs to backup his files ... and guess what? Explorer decided that "drag & drop" and "copy & paste" operations between the local C:\ drive and a remote backup mount point ( \\SERVER\Location\whatever ) should no longer be possible ... LOL In the end us UNIXers had to come to their rescue and type in a few "copy" commands by hand .... mega-ROFL

[clem]

OK, I'm confused... I actually like Vista...

It's only been one day but my first impression is very positive. It is indeed slow compared to Mint or Linux in general and it feels cluttered but it's full of nice little innovations and there's a lot we could learn from it.

I'm taking notes and slowly testing it. Overall I'm happily surprised so far.

There's no doubt Windows is more and more irritating as you start using it but the first impression given by Vista is impressive and in terms of polish and attention to detail it's way more impressive than any Linux distribution I've tested so far (yes, even Fedora). This is one of the things we lack and where we can improve. Linux is a much better OS but if we fail to impress at first sight then there's no point being desktop-ready.

More on this later.

Clem

[merlwiz79]

I have been using Vista since the Beta testing.
There was a speed problem at the beginning but the Final release was fine on my computer.
I have it installed on a P4 EE 2.8 with 1GB ram, Geforce 5700LE 256MB and there isn't much differences in speed with XP.
I did do a lot of tweaking to get it there and can't remember everything I did.
I hope I don't have to reinstall it.

My wifes new laptop cam with Vista and it was slow at 1st but they had the Performance set to Balance.
I just Maxed everything for while it was using a outlet.

A lot of people say they have problems with Vista, but I haven't had one crash or anything unexpected happen. I have had no problems and have installed every update that comes out.

Overall its an ok OS, but I use Linux most of the time.

[maty1206]

TO Clem:

Do you wanna kill me?

WIndo$ sucks a lot. Sorry but, that's the true.

I love XP but don't ever never Vista.

Cheers

[scorp123]

but it's full of nice little innovations and there's a lot we could learn from it.

My dear ... we all need to learn from *THIS*: http://images.apple.com/movies/us/apple/mac/macosx/2007/wwdc/apple-desktop_672x416.mov

... and not Vista ...

I'm taking notes and slowly testing it. Overall I'm happily surprised so far.

Forget Vista. I want those 'stacks' and those shiny reflections 'Leopard' has on my Mint desktop !!!

This is one of the things we lack and where we can improve. Linux is a much better OS but if we fail to impress at first sight then there's no point being desktop-ready.

Giving effects similar to 'Leopard' ... now *that* would be impressive

[maty1206]

TO Scorp123:

I'm completely agree with you.

[merlwiz79]

Here is a driver for Ext2 and Ext3.
Make sure to use letters when configuring.
Just click on exe link to download.
http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/projects ... tm#ext2fsd

[johnwillis]

Well I have to agree with Clem on this one, Windows Vista is well polished. It has some very cool features out the box. and is truely easy to just pick up and "go" for new users.

I am a long time Linux user and one of the main problems I seem to encounter with new users is that inability to just "get things done", true Linux Mint aids new users by allowing MP3 support, etc but there is still some way to go. I will support Linux and I want it to take the enterprise desktop market. Maybe even home-users too if we have our way!

I do have one concern though. People saying that Vista is slow??? I am running Vista Ultimate Edition 64bit and I can honestly say it is not slow. If anything even running the 32bit edition it is still faster than XP on my machine. I am running a Intel Core 2 Q6600 Quad Core, 4gb RAM, 250GB RAID 1, 8400GTS and it's fast as f**k.

I am highly impressed with Media Centre and I believe that Linux Mint could try and implement Myth TV directly into the desktop. I have a Nova-T Dual Tuner that works flawlessly with Vista, if I could get the same experience with Linux I would be "WOW'd!"

I am just waiting for 64bit versions of Linux Mint now. I will be very happy then. All I can say is Linux Mint is moving in the perfect direction, but in my opinion, as from the 4.X series (just to give enough time for testing, implementation, etc) there should be many of the features of a Windows Desktop - media centre, decent iPAQ support if possible and other neat touches such as the graphics showing how much disc space is used.

All in all I am happy with my Linux install. I use it for everything apart from my media centre and my .NET development. But to convert users of Vista Home Pre/Ultimate then we'll need to get a more rounded feel/complete product that feels easy to just pick up and go.

I'm not flaming Linux at all, I simply see a space for further integration of current projects. I actually think if out the box integration with Myth TV was used (I've used it as a live CD) then it'd make it more competative against Vista.

Also, here's a thought Clem. How about building a nice VMWare Image for VMWare Player for Windows Users to try right within Windows?

Oh and by the way, I am loving the new artwork in 3.1 - very nice looking.

Have a nice day guys.

John

[poision]

Hi john i was reading this thread just for knowing what is actual 64 bit n how its works but this thread went in other direction.Well i ll just say that in our linux world opensuse is well polished distro.I was using opensuse before getting on ubuntu n mint.As far as i saw opensuse 64 bit is more polished than ubuntu64 bit.Other hand driver n codec problem is more in ubuntu 64 than opensuse 64.But anyways its really good news that we ll get mint4.X 64bit.But can anyone explain me what are the advantages of 64bit over 32bit?I am having amd turion64 x2 compaq v3000z.I really wanna see hows 64bit os but only after knowing about it.
Regards
poision

[Boo]

There is a post somewhere about this.

so you have a 64bit CPU:
64bit OS (and apps) will run faster than 32bit. but maybe not by much depending on the application. eg computational programs will run much faster , ie matlab, Blender.

so you have 4GB of RAM or more:
well 64bit OS will be able to use all of that RAM while a 32bit OS will only use about 2GB of your 4GB RAM. so this also equates to running more apps at once better.

well they are the main points.
so to get the full benefit of 64bit OS you need a 64bit capable CPU and 4+ GB of RAM.

[poision]

Hey boo thanks for such a gr8 information.My all points you covered in that.Well just final question.I ve only 2gb of ram so shall i try 64bit mint in future or should stick with 32bit.My laptop supports only 2gb of ram.If it need 4gb then its disappointing news for me.Well guide me in this.Thanks
regards

[merlwiz79]

Hey boo thanks for such a gr8 information.My all points you covered in that.Well just final question.I ve only 2gb of ram so shall i try 64bit mint in future or should stick with 32bit.My laptop supports only 2gb of ram.If it need 4gb then its disappointing news for me.Well guide me in this.Thanks
regards

2GBs of RAM is the recommended minimum.
It's just better to have 4GBs of RAM.

[clem]

32bit OS support up to 4GB of RAM. Windows reserves some of that RAM so it actually only support up to 2GB-3.8GB RAM. Under Linux it should make full use of your 4GB.

So in brief:

- if you have 2GB of RAM, 32bit OS will use them fine.

- if you have 4GB of RAM, Linux 32 bit OS will use them fine.

- if you have 8GB of RAM, Linux 32 bit OS will only use 4GB.. (this is really where you want to switch to a 64bit OS.. to make full use of your RAM).

Clem