Linus Acknowledges 32-Bit Linux As Less Important

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linus Acknowledges 32-Bit Linux As Less Important

The Linux 3.12 kernel was released on Sunday evening but prior to that was a last-minute pull request that got rejected by Linus Torvalds and with it he reaffirmed the focus of Linux on 64-bit...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTUwMzI

[ArneBab]

just a small typo:

newer hardware is more important than old (in this case, 64-bit support) is more important than the old (32-bit). Linus had said, "32-bit is less important."

[Sonadow]

Less important?

Bay Trail is still 32bit only until at least 2014Q2 and is brand new hardware. So Linus is essentially saying "Let's not bother with Bay Trail hardware until a full 64bit Bay Trail product complete with 64bit UEFI firmware is shipping".

[Vim_User]

Less important?

Bay Trail is still 32bit only until at least 2014Q2 and is brand new hardware. So Linus is essentially saying "Let's not bother with Bay Trail hardware until a full 64bit Bay Trail product complete with 64bit UEFI firmware is shipping".

I don't know where you get that impression from, but all available Bay Trail CPUs are marked as "Intel 64 - Yes" on ark.intel.com. It seems that Bay Trail is without exception 64 bit.

[wargames]

The move from 16-bit to 32-bit was much more important than the move from 32-bit to 64-bit due to the fact that most software does not benefit from 64-bit memory addressing, that's why 32-bit and 64-bit have been coexisting for such a long time.

[Sonadow]

I don't know where you get that impression from, but all available Bay Trail CPUs are marked as "Intel 64 - Yes" on ark.intel.com. It seems that Bay Trail is without exception 64 bit.

The hardware is 64bit capable but the UEFI firmware they are shipping on is only 32bit and will thus run in only 32bit mode. It's not just the Asus T100 doing this; this is expected to be the default configuration for all upcoming Bay Trail hardware to be released for the time being.

Intel has claimed that the full 64-bit configurations of Bay Trail complete with 64bit UEFI will only be available next year:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048599/windows-81-tablets-with-64bit-atom-chips-not-coming-until-q1.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2059520/bay-trail-chips-to-speed-up-lenovos-next-thinkpad-tablet.html

Apparently, the reason is that Bay Trail does not work with some portions of x64 Windows yet, but Intel was keen in shipping out the hardware first, hence the non-standard 64bit CPU + 32bit UEFI initial implementation.

[Mike Frett]

Yet the fact remains, one glimpse at all your Humble Bundle games you bought show that some things are still in 32bit. I could also dig up a quadrillion posts citing issues with running 32bit Software on 64bit systems. There is also the issue with Wine, a lot of 32bit Windows software doesn't play well on a 64bit system. These are a few reasons why I still run a 32bit OS, I need things to work properly. If you don't do the things I mentioned and have lots of ram (4GB+) then 64bit is probably for you.

It is what it is guys. That guy ^ there is right, the move from 16bit to 32bit was much more important from a Desktop POV, not so much 32bit to 64bit. We still have things that need to be sorted out.

[blackout23]

There is also the issue with Wine, a lot of 32bit Windows software doesn't play well on a 64bit system.

1. Install Wine or if installed "rm -rf /home/user/.wine"
2. WINEARCH=win32 winecfg

Problem solved. It's exactly the same as installing Wine on x86 Linux.

[schmidtbag]

I don't know where you get that impression from, but all available Bay Trail CPUs are marked as "Intel 64 - Yes" on ark.intel.com. It seems that Bay Trail is without exception 64 bit.

Even if Intel was dumb enough to make some Bay Trail CPUs 32 bit, it'd be their own fault for being pushed as a low priority. Even MS is intending to phase out 32 bit, and Windows is the most x86-64 unfriendly OS around. But seriously, even in CPUs in the past 3 years, what is Intel's excuse for making models that are strictly 32 bit?

@wargames
32 bit has been surviving for so long because so many people can't ditch their P4s, and because companies like Adobe for the longest time refused to make 64 bit versions of important products, such as flash. The stupid thing is right when Flash started to lose relevance, it became 64 bit compatible.
Anyway, while most programs might not take advantage of 64 bit, very rarely does 64 bit slow down programs. In programs that are inefficient in 64 bit (typically because they've been sloppily ported), they might take up a little more memory, but RAM is so cheap these days that this isn't really an issue. In other words, there is very little reason to NOT use 64 bit.

[wargames]

@wargames
32 bit has been surviving for so long because so many people can't ditch their P4s, and because companies like Adobe for the longest time refused to make 64 bit versions of important products, such as flash. The stupid thing is right when Flash started to lose relevance, it became 64 bit compatible.
Anyway, while most programs might not take advantage of 64 bit, very rarely does 64 bit slow down programs. In programs that are inefficient in 64 bit (typically because they've been sloppily ported), they might take up a little more memory, but RAM is so cheap these days that this isn't really an issue. In other words, there is very little reason to NOT use 64 bit.

I agree, and, like you, I see very little reason to not switch to 64-bit. By switching to 64-bit we also get access to more registers and faster operations, but big corporations (not programmers) drive the market.