lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[PCMan <pcman.tw@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here are my two cents:

1. Compiling for 64-bit will make executable binaries bigger and takes
more disk space
2. because of #1, 64-bit apps uses more memory, but the difference is minimal
3. the performance of most apps are bound to I/O and mainly affected
by speed of hard drives and internet transmission speed, not CPU. So
don't expect any visible performance gain if you go 64-bit. Most of
the deskop apps nowadays are I/O bound and 64-bit memory access won't
help much and the I/O can even increase due to increased binary sizes.
Get 64-bit version of nautilus and you'll see what I mean.
4. A well written C program can be used both in 32 and 64 bit
environment without any modification. So no additional develop work is
needed. If a C program runs in 32, but crashes in 64, that's a bug.
It's a packaging issue, not a developing one. No modification to
source code is not needed so developers are only needed for
packaging/testing, not coding. Given the automated build system, not
many developers are needed. Otherwise, it's a bug.
5. CPU intensive programs can benefit from 64 bit since your CPU can
handle more data in the same time, but this only holds true when the
applications are designed to take advantage of it. Most of our daily
apps won't get performance gain. Actually some will even become
slower. Try it at home if you don't believe it.

Conclusion:
1. Going 64-bit won't give much visible performance gain. So it's not
a must-have.
2. Going 64-bit won't take much work and should be easy, unless there
are bugs. So there is no reason not to do it. This can help find
potential bugs.
3. If a program runs well in 32-bit OS, but fail to run in 64-bit one,
this is not an architecture problem. It's a bug. Please report it
instead of complain of 64-bit.