joelja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Joel Jaeggli) writes:
> Not sure what the point of running a 64bit distro on a laptop is at the
> moment, it's pretty hard to put 4GB of ram in one...
Keep in mind that contrary to the SPARC architecture (for example), the ISA
is somewhat different between ia32 and x86_64 meaning that not only, as you
point out, you can address more memory in x86_64 mode but you also have
more registers available (for one). And sometimes, these differences can
make a pretty big difference (you have benchmarks all over the web), even
if your applications don't use GB of ram.
So yes there's a certain coolness factor but it isn't totally a bad idea
either to run a x86_64 distro on the right hardware.
--
Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer
"Le disparu, si l'on vénère sa mémoire, est plus présent et
plus puissant que le vivant".
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Citadelle --
