Ubuntu 16.04 Might Be The Distribution's Last 32-Bit Release

[kneekoo]

In 2020. i guess there will be less then 5% users of pure i386 distros, and there is not any sign 32bit x86 will revamp. At that time 64bit and arm will be in majority, that is what is/will be good supported . And i386 will take place in Debian ports for people who really need it, so you can took packages from there - nothing to loose .

I think you missed my point: it's not all about the architecture itself. It's also about the hardware limitations that currently exist, even in 2014. Plenty PCs, otherwise great performance-wise, have RAM limitations of up to 4GB, which makes for a bad user experience whenever the users end up in needing more RAM than physically available. A quad-core CPU bought in 2014 will still be able to do plenty of tasks in 2020. So it's basically the PC manufacturers' fault for selling limited hardware when RAM has become so cheap these days. But the limitations exist and operating system creators/maintainers must consider that. It's nothing but common sense.

[chrisb]

64-bit apps require more RAM, so running at least 3-4 desktop apps when one of them is a browser... that's not easy for systems with 2GB of RAM. They will soon swap and that sucks.

Have you ever seen any benchmarks that show this claim to be accurate? 64-bit programs will use slightly more memory because each pointer is longer, but the effect of that on most programs will be to increase the memory usage by only a few megabytes. 64-bit code should be faster because there are twice as many general purpose registers and no need for an extra level of memory indirection (PAE). The old Phoronix 32 vs 64 bit kernel benchmark results show the 64-bit kernel being about 40% faster for most tasks. Reducing performance to save some memory is a poor tradeoff.

[kneekoo]

The old Phoronix 32 vs 64 bit kernel benchmark results show the 64-bit kernel being about 40% faster for most tasks. Reducing performance to save some memory is a poor tradeoff.

There are 2 choices:
1. Run software fast until you hit the RAM limit, then swap and go a lot slower
2. Run software slightly slower than 64-bit and rarely touch the swap

Besides, you can't refer to synthetic benchmarks when talking about real-life usage. I'm talking about Firefox/Chrome (RAM hogs) and other software that people use on a daily basis. The best solution is to avoid the swap. Having a modern PC kind of encourages you to use a modern UI because you have graphical acceleration and things generally work smoothly, but the bling takes quite a toll. My 64-bit OS at home takes up about 400-500 MB of RAM with MATE.

[kneekoo]

The old Phoronix 32 vs 64 bit kernel benchmark results show the 64-bit kernel being about 40% faster for most tasks. Reducing performance to save some memory is a poor tradeoff.

What would you choose?
1. Run software fast until you hit the RAM limit, then swap and go a lot slower
2. Run software slightly slower than 64-bit and rarely touch the swap

Besides, you can't refer to synthetic benchmarks when talking about real-life usage. I'm talking about Firefox/Chrome (RAM hogs) and other software that people use on a daily basis. The best solution is to avoid the swap. Having a modern PC kind of encourages you to use a modern UI because you have graphical acceleration and things generally work smoother, but the bling takes quite a toll, and 64-bit bling takes a higher toll.

P.S. I can't remove my previous post... my keyboard played a trick on me and somehow posted and I didn't notice before I revised my post. Oh well...

[TheLexMachine]

I think you missed my point: it's not all about the architecture itself. It's also about the hardware limitations that currently exist, even in 2014. Plenty PCs, otherwise great performance-wise, have RAM limitations of up to 4GB, which makes for a bad user experience whenever the users end up in needing more RAM than physically available. A quad-core CPU bought in 2014 will still be able to do plenty of tasks in 2020. So it's basically the PC manufacturers' fault for selling limited hardware when RAM has become so cheap these days. But the limitations exist and operating system creators/maintainers must consider that. It's nothing but common sense.

AFAIK, nobody apart from Google and their ChromeJunk, sells products to the masses with only 4GB, so perhaps you should show us what you mean by your statement.

[drSeehas]

AFAIK, nobody apart from Google and their ChromeJunk, sells products to the masses with only 4GB, so perhaps you should show us what you mean by your statement.

With only 2 GB:

https://skinflint.co.uk/packard-bell-enme69bmp-28062g32nii-nx-c3bek-003-a1172831.html

https://skinflint.co.uk/acer-aspire-v5-123-12102g32nkk-black-nx-mfqek-005-a1059937.html

https://skinflint.co.uk/asus-eeebook-x205ta-fd015b-a1174200.html

https://skinflint.co.uk/asus-x200ma-kx373b-blue-90nb04u3-m10640-a1164331.html

Acer, ASUS = nobody?

[kneekoo]

AFAIK, nobody apart from Google and their ChromeJunk, sells products to the masses with only 4GB, so perhaps you should show us what you mean by your statement.

Straight from Amazon:

Computer RAM Capacity
12 GB & Up12 GB & Up (1,207)
8 GB8 GB (1,983)
6 GB6 GB (318)
4 GB4 GB (5,360)
3 GB & Under3 GB & Under (2,422)

As you can see, the majority have 4GB or less. Obviously, not all of them have a fixed amount of RAM. Some can be upgraded, but quite a lot of them will forever have less than 4GB of RAM.

[TheLexMachine]

Straight from Amazon:

Computer RAM Capacity
12 GB & Up12 GB & Up (1,207)
8 GB8 GB (1,983)
6 GB6 GB (318)
4 GB4 GB (5,360)
3 GB & Under3 GB & Under (2,422)

As you can see, the majority have 4GB or less. Obviously, not all of them have a fixed amount of RAM. Some can be upgraded, but quite a lot of them will forever have less than 4GB of RAM.

Very few of them cannot be upgraded and that's pretty much limited to the Chromebooks, which are designed to work with small amounts of memory and minimal overhead. Go into any actual store - where people actually buy their computers - and you'll likely see not a single name brand laptop or desktop packing 4GB of memory. Manufacturers and retailers make money off of memory upgrades, so they are loathe to sell anything with a fixed amount of memory that cannot be upgraded.

[kneekoo]

Very few of them cannot be upgraded and that's pretty much limited to the Chromebooks, which are designed to work with small amounts of memory and minimal overhead. Go into any actual store - where people actually buy their computers - and you'll likely see not a single name brand laptop or desktop packing 4GB of memory. Manufacturers and retailers make money off of memory upgrades, so they are loathe to sell anything with a fixed amount of memory that cannot be upgraded.

Yes, on a lot of models you can upgrade from 2GB to 3GB or 4GB (maximum). But that's still not so much.

[TheLexMachine]

Yes, on a lot of models you can upgrade from 2GB to 3GB or 4GB (maximum). But that's still not so much.

Low-end notebooks have 64-bit CPUs these days and almost always have at least one SODIMM slot, so you can upgrade them to 8GB with no problems. Manufacturers only test what's available when they cook up their laptops and what they prefer to put in products, so don't go by their specs when it comes to memory. I have had quite a few notebooks that were limited to 4 or 8 in the specs but all of them ran 8 or 16, depending on what kind of memory they used.