32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

bin · 2016-10-21 13:57

I've been using 64 bit linux for a few years and had found that there was a substantial difference in feel between the two on Ubuntu based distros.

Taking a look at my most used progs I realise that in most cases I am actually running 32 bit apps on a 64 bit system - Darktable is the only seriously 64 bit need. Of the Wine apps I use one is 32 bit only, one is either and so they're quite happy. On the office front I've had so much trouble with both LibreOffice and WPS working with complex docx files from various sources that I'm moving over to Softmaker which just does what I need. That's also 32 bit right now.

So, I decided to load up a spare drive with Orion 32 bit and see what happened.

I must admit to being quite surprised by just how slick it all is. No really noticeable lag and in some cases things seem to be faster then 64 bit - and that's on a normal hard drive rather than SSD.

The only slight downside I've found is that the cooling fan is running almost continually rather than cutting in and out which it does on 64 bit.

Temps are at 44C so it ain't hot - but then this is something I've had off and on with this machine with various linux distros.

Other than that - I may even use 32 bit as main machine for a while....

Dai_trying · 2016-10-21 17:09

It has been said before that 32 bit OS's seem to perform as well if not better on 64 bit hardware, I generally use like for like matching , but there is always the exception. Did you notice a decrease in the amount of ram required too? that is one thing I have noticed between 32/64 bit installs, sometimes it can be around double.
I also had some problems with fans not functioning correctly and googling left me feeling that although there are quite a few solved threads in various forums, it is a bit hit and miss to keep them working right. In my experience is it is usually down to the kernel and using the newer kernel can often fix it (but not always).

bin · 2016-10-22 08:01

Memory usage is one of those funny things as it seems to depend on what you use to measure it with.
Htop and Ksensors both show tickover at 146Mb
That's not too far off the 64 bit system - either way round nothing to complain about.
Having said that I have installed acpid and acpisupporttools to see if they can tame the fans. I recall having this issue with an early realease of Bodhi a couple of years back and that did help. So far it seems to be working on Q4OS too - time will tell.
Top shows 440Mb at the same time - very puzzling.
Hardinfo is a bit too granular to work out what it thinks!!!
Just watch the meter rise when you run up Chromium..............
I use Seamonkey and it runs at about 2/3rds of what Chromium guzzles
Kernel swapping is a bit of a pain on this box as anything above 3.19 sends the fans into overdrive - but then this is a rather odd laptop generally. Haven't tried that with 32 bit and acpi installed though - I'll give it a whirl..

......Short time later..........

Well - that was a bad idea!!!

Last edited by bin (2016-10-22 08:20)

DavidB · 2016-10-22 16:03

Very interesting, Bin and Dai. I've just recently done the opposite on my Lenovo T61. I've always used 32bit, but since this laptop is 64bit, I thought I'd install a spanking new 64 Orion on to it to see how it runs.

So far so good, in the sense that I haven't noticed an anomalies aside from one: I can't run Seamonkey for some reason. I usually just download and unpack the tar.gz file and run the bash script, but I get that stupid "word unexpected (expecting ")")" syntax error. So, I wanted to use QupZilla as my replacement browser, but the version available in the repositories has an issue with HTML5 video and makes Youtube useless to me. So, it's Vivaldi for now. It's okay, but certainly not as responsive as my good ol' Seamonkey.

The laptop has been performing well and I haven't noticed any performance differences (good or bad). So, at this point, I guess I'm not seeing any major benefits to running 64bit over 32bit. I haven't done any video processing yet, so maybe I'll see some performance improvements then.

A good thread. Glad you brought it up.

bin · 2016-10-22 17:35

After a bit of messing around I've reverted this drive to 64 bit.
The big problem for me is Darktable which I use for RAW photo processing - it actually carries a 32 bit health warning - and it is just not happy in 32 bit.
Video processing I would not go near it with 32 bit if I had a 64 machine - way too much pain.............

64bit RAM is a bit higher at around 230mb in Htop - but meh - no problem and still lightyears ahead of the 'buntu stable- though LXLE is very close at idle.

As regards Seamonkey - normally as you say DavidB, you can run the binary from the download - however the repository also works and that is how I install as it always seems to work.
I add Seafox add-on to make it work like Firefox3 along with uBlock Origin to keep the rubbish out.

Full story is here:-
https://sourceforge.net/p/ubuntuzilla/wiki/Main_Page/

The repository to add in Synaptic is:-
deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/projec … ozilla/apt all main

In terminal run:-
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C1289A29

The Seamonkey Mozilla Build will be installable via Synaptic.

Version 2.46 is struggling out of the door - I've tried the latest build and it works fine - just not hit release yet. I must admit I find other browsers stodgy by comparison and having the email client built in is just a bonus all the way.

Last edited by bin (2016-10-22 17:36)

DavidB · 2016-10-22 18:13

Ah, excellent! Thank you very much, Bin. I can now get my beloved Seamonkey back! In my opinion, it's, by far, the best web browser/suite out there. I've been using it for years.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2016-10-21 13:57

32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

#2 2016-10-21 17:09

Re: 32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

#3 2016-10-22 08:01

Re: 32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

#4 2016-10-22 16:03

Re: 32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

#5 2016-10-22 17:35

Re: 32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

#6 2016-10-22 18:13

Re: 32 bit compared with 64 bit - some surpises

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