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<body><div>On Sat, 30 Jul 2016, at 03:46, Edinburgh Linux Users Group wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">Hi, thanks to everyone who replied. I just learned that one needs to have 4 GB of RAM to take advantage of 64 bit GNU-Linux, so I am out of luck, as this machine only has 3 GB of RAM. Is that true, am I out of luck?<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">You don't *need* to have 4GB RAM to use a 64 bit kernel. It will happily work with less as long as you clear the minimum requirement for whatever system you're installing. <br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">I'd recommend using a 64bit kernel if the hardware supports it: that way you can use either 64bit or 32bit userland applications. In debian (and all the derivatives I've used) the multiarch support for installing both side by side, and pulling in the right libraries, works well now. <br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">I think worries about addresses being bigger and wasting memory are overblown: if addresses/pointers make up even 1% of an apps memory use I'd be very surprised (I have vague memories of an article actually testing this that came to the conclusion of some small increase, but can't find it now...). If you do find an app where it's noticeable[0] you can always install the 32bit version of it. 64bit might offer some run time advantages: it can "natively" operate on 64bits per instruction[1], so for processing where that matters it'll be faster.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">Robert<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">[0] They might exist - if I was trying to be awkward I could certainly write one.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">[1] There were instructions that operated on 64bits (and wider) operands before x86_64 but they were special cases - the general purpose registers were 32bits, where they are 64bits in a 64bit system.</div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">-- <br></div>
<div id="sig481670"><div class="signature">Robert McWilliam rmcw@allmail.net www.ormiret.com<br></div>
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<div class="signature">Apparently, three out of four people make up 75% of the population.<br></div>
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