MX Linux Forum

I'm impressed with MX-14 and a huge fan in just a day, Now the question: it's a 32 bit system and all of my hardware is 64 bit - what will I miss out on? I have 3 laptops I use cyclically, a Core I-3, a Core I-5, and a Core I-7 gaming box with 8GB RAM and Nvidia graphics. No, I'm not a gamer, I bought it cheap from a college student when I saw it on Craigslist for $300.

I know this discussion happens often on the PCLinuxOS forums and that was a system I used for over a year. The general concensus was the average user would not even feel the difference for 99% of the stuff done. What's y'alls opinion of running a 32 bit OS on modern fast hardware?

Also, will there be a 64 bit version of MX-14?

The quickest answer is to say that there is no plan for a 64bit MX-14.

Fair enough, not sure it's necessary anyway...

There is a speed increase if doing stuff like video transcoding and compiling applications on 64-bit. However, MX 14 should show a really noticable speed increase if installed using btrfs as the file system with LZO compression, but this really needs testing first, and and clear instructions added to the wiki.

I've also seen recommendations to install and use ulatency, but am not sure if this does not just result in the placebo/confirmation effect.

I have a 7 years old... I can't really tell if I run a 64bit or a 32bit OS. I guess the only improvement I could make to make it faster is to get a SSD, but I don't feel the need to spend extra money for that yet.

I don't do video transcoding or any coding/compiling anymore so I reckon 32 bit will be just fine for me. Everything is a tradeoff and the overall look, feel, stability and operation of the OS is more important to me than a few nano-seconds. I was actually going to move to SolydX today before I discovered MX-14...

My simple answer to, "Do I need 64 bit?" is "No." I've been running 32-bit kernels on my 64-bit dual-core CPU for 8 years. I started using pae kernels about 6 years ago because I wasn't able to access all of my RAM with a non-pae 32-bit kernel. MX-14 comes with a pae kernel OTB and it's blazingly fast on my oldish box.

A 64-bit kernel would definitely make video transcoding faster, but you said you don't do much of that anyway, so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with MX-14.

My Netbook is only 32 bit and I don't feel that it's any slower than my Desktop. Of course I'm not going to do any transcoding, etc. on it either.

Still, I would be pleased to install a 64bit version on my i-core7. Since Antix comes with both 32 and 64bit versions, I thought MX14 would have followed the same way. In my opinion, MX14 will not raised in popularity if there is only a 32bit version. Most people want 64bit nowadays for their brand new PCs. And we're still happy to install a blazing 32bit OS on ower good old PCs. So I'd say that both are requiered

The very first public release of antiX (called Spartacus) was released on 09 July 2007.
The first antiX 64 bit (called Luddite) was released on 02 June 2013 i.e almost 6 years later.

So expect a 64 bit MX in 2020 :)

anticapitalista wrote:The quickest answer is to say that there is no plan for a 64bit MX-14.

Which makes me very happy. :) More emphasis on keeping it working well.

I have a mix of netbooks for work, old PCs in my wife's preschool, and my 64bit desktop.
I run 32-bit on everything. It simplifies support considerably.

I have tried 64 bit OSs on 64 bit hardware but on my usage pattern it offers no discernible benefits.

 
I suspect that most users in most cases would be unable to pinpoint which architecture they were using based on performance.

With the pae kernel available, I think the main reason for 64 bit is taken away .
Not sure with MX, but in Windows XP, 32 bit limited you to about 3 Gig of RAM.

I do like , and use more than that now with MX-14.

Transcoding and such will see a noticeable improvement in processing time. But normal browsing, etc. you won't see a difference that a normal human can tell is faster or slower. If you do do a lot of transcoding etc. then you can keep a 64 bit OS for that sort of thing.

Eventually of course the main Desktop Environments will be complex enough to benefit from 64 bit operating systems. But that's still a fair amount of time away.
By then of course we'll be talking about 128 bit vs 64 bit.

entropyfoe wrote:With the pae kernel available, I think the main reason for 64 bit is taken away .
Not sure with MX, but in Windows XP, 32 bit limited you to about 3 Gig of RAM.

I do like , and use more than that now with MX-14.

Code: Select all

top - 21:39:22 up 16 days, 2 min,  4 users,  load average: 1.21, 1.55, 1.60
Tasks: 218 total,   3 running, 214 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 13.9 us,  0.5 sy,  0.0 ni, 85.6 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:  16526636 total,  7105464 used,  9421172 free,   289672 buffers
KiB Swap: 17678332 total,        0 used, 17678332 free,  4754152 cached

Wow! With 16GB available and 7GB used, your machine must be screamin' fast with MX-14 on it.

Joany,

Yup, it is screaming fast!

My wife calls this my "supercomputer" which is pretty accurate. I make comparison to the Cray YMP I think that had 4-8 cores, similar RAM. My old buddy at Boeing had to get a security clearance to run jobs on such a machine back in the late 80s early 90s. And now we have this sitting next to the desk !

Between the 8 cores, SSD, and big RAM, everything pretty much happens instantly. And what is best is the machine is nearly silent ! A quiet cooler, one slow 120mm case fan, and the fanless video in a good case does the job.

AMD and Linux do a great job of throttling cores back when not needed. Keeps it quiet, and at idle consuming about 65 Watts. I have swappiness set to 1, so it rarely ever touches swap and it recovers from sleep in <10 seconds, so there is no need to reboot hardly ever !

I am proud of this machine, and it has another invention I made. I call it RAWPOD, by analogy to RAID. The system has a 1TB drive for data, and another internal 2TB drive for back up of data. But RAWPOD stands for Redundant Array With Powered Off Disks. The 2TB has a key switch that turns off the +5 and +12V red and yellow power supply wires to that drive. So most of the time it sits powered off, immune from power surges, accidental deletions, head crashes etc. I turn the switch and run LuckyBackup, and then power it off. I think this is a mechanically safer environment fro a drive than an external enclosure (cooler, shock mounted etc).

The only slowdowns are when I do Audacity compression/exports, filters, or other media encoding.
-Jay

I haven't tried media encoding, as my antix 64bit set up is still where I do my video editing. I find myself using MX for daily stuff more and more. The whisker menu setup is too nice!

to me, 32bit is still the lingua franca of the computing world. There are still a lot of apps (and printer drivers, brother...) that need 32bit libraries anyway. Heck, even steam is 32 bit.

Sounds like the 16 bit vs 32 bit discussions a few years back. I'll agree that 32 is the lingua franca of current computing. I'm also glad that provision has been made for running 32 bit software on 64 bit operating systems in the 'Nix world.

Let's be straight here: MX will never challenge major xfce distros like Mint, Xubuntu or whatever without a 64bit edition. Even the forever 32bit PCLOS have been pushed by the community to release 64bit editions.

Let's be even straighter: what the major distros you mention have that MX-14 does not is huge financial and personnel resources.

Unless I am mistaken, among the goals of MX-14, challenging the distros you mentioned was not among them..

Correct. MX14 wasn't/isn't a race.

I think that it is enough.

It is a legitimate discussion as there are those who do not understand the decision and background that went into the development. It is helpful to let them know.

Since I'm new to MX-14 and I find this distro very appealing I'm glad you still consider to discuss this topic. Thank you for your patience. (As for my comment about "competition" I was just refering to Uncle Mark's "look out mint !")

I don't agree with most arguments previously exposed against a 64bit edition (I could explain my point on each of them but I understand you feel tired of this). Nevertheless I do understand now the one about the lack of ressources to achieve this port (to be franc I am not aware how much work this would cost). Fair enough.

ok, I take the status as it is. Does not mean to me I will stop my trip with MX: as I said before, MX is one of te best Xfce I've found around. MX is fast, polished, up to date, shiny. Since it's Debian Stable based, I guess it is stable too and will remain so for a long enough time. More point. Finally, the addition of Compiz by Stevo (https://github.com/Jubei-Mitsuyoshi/aaa-debian-repo.git) just pushed MX in my top 3 (cause I put compiz every time the pc can handle it smoothly). Thanks for providing the community such a good work.

What we need is another Community member to take this over b/c anti simply can not. "Take over" means development and support, though with the Debian-antiX OS and Xfce DE, the task would be manageable.

BTW: if anybody is willing and able, s/he should PM the Lead Developer.

Well, I'm afraid I won't be able to bring the slightest help on this... The best I can do is to send my support; maybe a 'donate' click can do it. Done.