Do you run 64-bit or 32 bit Mint, and why.

[Garvan]

This morning I was reading the Mint main pages at http://linuxmint.com/ and I saw that a Linux Mint 13 OEM has been released, but in 64-bit only. This made me realise that the time of the 32-bit OS is at an end. A bit of searching showed that the advise that I read two to five years ago about sticking to 32-bit releases may be outdated.

I have decided that the next time I upgrade I will choose a 64-bit version. Am I the last person to come to this conclusion? What version (64-bit or 32-bit) do the majority of Mint Forum user use? Are there any comments on problems and issues with the 64-bit version?

Garvan

[veggen]

I switched to 64 on Mint 12. No big difference (if at all) if you ask me. Flash used to work horribly on 64, but it's mostly ok now...

[monkeyboy]

This morning I was reading the Mint main pages at http://linuxmint.com/ and I saw that a Linux Mint 13 OEM has been released, but in 64-bit only. This made me realise that the time of the 32-bit OS is at an end. A bit of searching showed that the advise that I read two to five years ago about sticking to 32-bit releases may be outdated.

I have decided that the next time I upgrade I will choose a 64-bit version. Am I the last person to come to this conclusion? What version (64-bit or 32-bit) do the majority of Mint Forum user use? Are there any comments on problems and issues with the 64-bit version?

Garvan

As long as there is a significant number of 32 bit machines out there folks will be looking for updated 32 bit OSs. Beyond that there have been folks in the 32 bit trenches fighting the good fight for such a long time that they will never quit. What might be fun is to run this poll every six months to a year and see how the numbers trend. Thanks

[jswmcw]

I use 32-bit on both my desktop and laptop. However, that is only so I don't have to hear my wife complain about her flash-based games not working right.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[abnvolk]

I use 64-bit simply because my laptop has 4GB RAM

[xenopeek]

There are a lot of biased and personal opinions out there (and this is one also ), about whether 32 bit or 64 bit is better. Just use whatever works best for you With the 32 bit PAE kernel you can address up to 64 GiB memory (but still only 4 GiB per application), so I think most users don't need to run 64 bit for the argument of having 4 GiB or more memory. Data crunching applications, like rendering, video or audio encoding, encrypting or archiving, are about 10-20% faster on a 64 bit system. But most tasks just have too short a duration for users to notice this difference.

Personally, I've preferred to use 64 bit since 2006. Though Flash tended to crash often way back on 64 bit, I've not had any issues with Flash since early 2010 I think. Perhaps I've just been lucky. I'll be switching to 128 bit as soon as it is available

[Fajah]

I run 64 bit on my laptop (Mint 13 Mate) and just installed the 32 bit version on my wife's old desktop. Both run perfectly fine without any issues so far.

[Ginsu543]

I've been running 64-bit Linux (started with Ubuntu and then made my way over to Mint) ever since I built my first system based on a 64-bit processor. I do do regular video encoding on my main rig, so going 64-bit was definitely the right decision for me. In the old days when I used to have problems with Flash, I used to use the 32-bit Flash workaround. Now that 64-bit computing has matured, much of those types of problems have been resolved.

[tburdge222]

This is a repeat of something I posted in the Open Discussion section -- this probably is a better place for it:
I had read quite a few forum posts regarding the 32-bit vs 64-bit OS pros and cons. I was aware of the 4gb RAM limitation on 32-bit, as well as hindrances with heavy computational or graphic rendering operations. A few posts talked about 64-bit requiring more RAM, but I was curious how much more, so I did a little test. I installed LMDE 32-bit (686-pae) and 64-bit on separate partitions, booted them with the same startups and additional programs, and then compared the RAM usage. What I found was that the 64-bit used, on average, about 50% more RAM compared to the 32-bit.
________________________LMDE 32-bit------>LMDE 64-bit = +% increase
firefox (with same 4 tabs)_______120mb------------->174mb = +45%
cinnamon_____________________53mb--------------> 76mb = +43%
dropbox______________________35mb---------------> 52mb = +48%
plugin-container________________40mb--------------> 73mb = +82%
soffice_______________________21mb---------------> 30mb = +43%
nautilus_______________________10mb--------------> 15mb = +50%
mate-system monitor_____________5mb-------------_-> 9mb = +80%
__________________________________________________________
Total of all 85 tasks____________391mb-------------->589mb = +50.6%

(I'm not sure why many of them were between +40~50%, but a few like plugin-container and mate-system-monitor were up around +80%.)

Anyway, I concluded that I want to conserve my 3gb of RAM, stick with the 32-bit for now, and wait until I have an 8gb system before hopping to the 64-bit.

[homerscousin]

Thank-you for taking the time to do this. I'd love to see a boatload more of this analysis type stuff. But now I want to know why 64 bit uses more, because it can?, is it the addressing scheme (don't know how that works), maybe it isn't efficient yet and will catch up?

[nunol]

64-bit pointers use more RAM than 32-bit pointers, to avoid that problem there's the X32 ABI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI

More info:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTExNDE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64

[willation]

I mainly use 64 bit, ideal for 4 GB RAM and more, but my laptop reads 3.9 so even if it were 3.5 it is still good. On older hardware and less memory I choose Mate 32 bit.

[ALF13]

I use Mint 13 Mate edition 64-bit because my processor is 64-bit and I have 4 gigs of ram. I also use the same lm13 MATE 32-bit edition for my old laptop. By the way I can't notice almost any difference in 64 and 32 bit editions.

[eanfrid]

My eeePC netbook of course runs a 32bit OS (a Debian Testing converted to LMDE 12.04/Cinnamon) since the cpu is not a 64bit model. But all my other machines run a 64bit OS because they have enough RAM to take advantage of it.

- 8GB of RAM on a Mint 13 64bit/Cinnamon desktop,
- 16GB of RAM on my main Debian Testing 64bit/Gnome3 machine (running a few Virtualbox VMs),
- 32GB of RAM on a Debian Squeeze-Proxmox 64bit/No-GUI server (running virtualized openvz and kvm servers).

I think that for those who own a 64bit CPU and 3GB < RAM < 8GB on their machines, a 64bit OS version does not make a big deal, so it is the land of user taste. The amount of RAM and the typical usage of the machine are, in this order, the criterias to make choice of either version. A 32bit PAE kernel on a 8GB machine is not a nonsensical choice.

[jjaythomas]

to get back to original post...

what the OEM ISOs are for. Because most new hardware coming out will be 64bit , why support 32bit in a OEM disk?

This really has nothing to do with if you should use 32bit or 64bit.
The only time would come in to play would be a very underpowered machine (for a OEM I haven't seen anything new lately with less than 1- 2g ram 64bit cpu netbooks or any traditional desktop with under 2g ram dual core 64 bit).

Not talking Droids/tablets and other OS machines>

J.Jay
P.S. maybe need to look harder

[phil]

I run 32bit because 64 bit Brother print drivers for my older (about 4 years and wide format) printers are not available to satisfactorily run 64 bit. I also run Win XP 32 on all of my computers so really can't make good use of 64 bit yet. No hurry though, because I still run many old engineering programs, some dating back to CPM and 16 bit. As long as OSs run the old programs I am happy.

[ALF13]

what the OEM ISOs are for. Because most new hardware coming out will be 64bit , why support 32bit in a OEM disk?

There are a lot of old computers which are with 32 bit processors.

[kmb42vt]

I run both 32 bit and 64 bit versions but only due to hardware configurations of my machines and what each machine is used for. My older Thinkpad R61s have dual core 64 bit processors but only 2 GB of DDR2 which is more than enough for what they're used for. Linux Mint 32 bit is fine for those.

My desktop is an Intel Core2 quad with 8 GB DDR2 with a dedicated Nvidia GT 430 video card with it's own 1.0 GB DDR3 and Linux Mint 64 bit is installed on this one. Being able to utilize the entire 64 bit hardware architecture of the PC comes in handy during the times when I actually need the horse power. I admit it's not often but it's nice to have it there when I do need it.

[BubbaBlues]

I use 64 bit Mint KDE and have almost since 12 was released. I have six gigs of ram in my desktop and 64 bit runs really fast. The 32 bit Mint 12 KDE
had some issues with ghosting in the task manager but I never had a single problem with it in 64 bit. I just installed Mint 13 KDE 64 and it seems great
now that I got the tiny font in synaptic worked out.

[DrHu]

When I use a machine with more than 4GB of RAM, I run a 64bit version, but not at the margins, eg 4-5GB of RAM; for that type of machine, I would probably stick with 32bit bit OS and 32bit apps to avoid any 64bit driver issues..
--and use the PAE kernel

If I do use a 64bit Linux OS, I want the machine to have 8GB or better RAM, then I can play at workstation performance..