stability in general : 32 vs 64 bit

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ironstone

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what are your views ?

i've been running mandriva 2010 free 64-bit for a while now. i like it, but time to time things don't work right. like - double click an icon, or select a menu option etc, and nothing happens. have to restart a time or three before trying the exact operation again with eventual, unexplained success. it's not common place, but is annoying when it does happen.

is 64-bit generally more sensitive than 32-bit, as linux goes ?
 
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WildPikachu

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Depends on your Linux vendor. Every distribution is different and make their own customizations to the software packages. If your software is not functioning properly, I suggest you contact them for support.

There is no stability difference between 32-bit and 64-bit in general, if the software is designed properly they will both operate in exactly the same way.
 
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MickZA

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Running Fedora 12 64 bit on a AMD64X2 here. I compile in c++, 32 bit cobol & fortran with no problems whatsoever :)

Only hassles I have are with pulseaudio & my TV card :crying: and, occasionally, kernel & nVidia updates are out of sync - no big deal.
 
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WildPikachu

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There is ALOT of badly designed software out there that does not support 64bit.
 
Tinuva

Tinuva

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I personally use OpenSUSE 64bit every day at work and I generally leave the pc on for weeks without reboot. Only times I do reboot is when there are a kernel+nvidia driver update. Machine is rock solid stable, same goes for my 64bit Arch Linux ect.

The fact that you have these problems might show another underlying problem. Could be your hardware has minor static damage and could be the reason for why things randomly start working after a reboot or 2. If it is not that, the alternative is Mandrake has a bug in their specific version of the software, you should be able to verify this by posting on their forums and confirming that other users also at random get the same problem.
 
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milomak

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i've been using 64-bit for what must be close on 5 years. in the last year or two I can't remember having to do additional things to run 64-bit. As stable as 32-bit I would imagine - Arch, Debian and Gentoo.
 
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koffiejunkie

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ironstone said:
i've been running mandriva 2010 free 64-bit for a while now. i like it, but time to time things don't work right. like - double click an icon, or select a menu option etc, and nothing happens. have to restart a time or three before trying the
.......
bit generally more sensitive than 32-bit, as linux goes ?
Click to expand...

No, it sounds more like you have a driver issue, probably graphics/mouse/keyboard driver (something to do with X). 64bit is *not* new in the Linux world. Long before AMD and Intel got on the 64bit bandwagon, Linux supported a host of 64bit CPUs.

System-wide stability differences between 32bit and 64bit are almost always down to drivers. A friend of mine used 32bit distros happily for years on his Athlon64/Asus mobo/Asus nVidia gfx card, but for the last year or so he started finding 32bit distros to be unstable while 64bit works just fine. Same distros, same versions of everything, same hardware.
 
Nod

Nod

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Starting the application via cli might give more details of the problem.
If it starts without issues in the cli, then it might be a window manager problem.
 
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Lord Nikon6

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There are definitely some issues with 64 bit software in all flavours. The best possible choice in my Opinion would be Opensuse or Ubuntu. Mandriva Free 64 is not bad but the One edition is a better choice, which is not available in 64 bit at the time.
 
hawker

hawker

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Lord Nikon6 said:
There are definitely some issues with 64 bit software in all flavours. The best possible choice in my Opinion would be Opensuse or Ubuntu. Mandriva Free 64 is not bad but the One edition is a better choice, which is not available in 64 bit at the time.
Click to expand...

What issues?

I'm using 64bit Ubuntu and I am not having any issues...
 
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MickZA

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ponder said:
Try google,

64 bit users having trouble compiling should know that ZSNES is currently only x86-32 compatible and will not be x86-64 compatible for a while.
Click to expand...

How is this pertinent to Linux 64 bit stability :confused:
 
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Lord Nikon6

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not issues in the kernel, but minor issues with applications such as wine and in certain cases virtualbox, perhaps this is just an Opensuse issues, but have heard the same in Mandriva
 
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ironstone

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milomak said:
please enlighten us with what these issues are?
Click to expand...

some of the issues originally on my mind include...

double-clicking an mp3 file. i expected it to open amarok and play. sometimes it didn't - nothing happened. i'd have to enter amarok, navigate to the file, then play it. i've found that this is the case when amarok is already open (resting in the system tray). rather than rebooting, i now open system tools then find and kill the process (amarok). after that, double-clicking an mp3 opens amarok and plays the file. (this may be more an amarok issue than a 64 vs 32 bit issue i expect).

the same was happening with the Network Center (systray icon) at that time. double-clicking didn't open / restore it. this issue has faded however. can only think an update along the way sorted it.

i use the Network Center to fire up a connection via my vodacom e220. when originally posting, it didn't seem to be 'retaining' the settings and wouldn't connect. i'd have to reconfigure - select sa as country (kept defaulting to slovakia or something), verify default local vodacom settings etc, refresh (scan for networks) then ok from there. no problems with this either of late though. (not sure why. have applied updates etc since. vodacom was giving grief in general a while back too, win7 included. maybe that.)

i don't think these were 64 vs 32 bit stability issues. i was curious on opinion though, as i seldom run 32 and cannot compare. i'm satisfied that 64 is still ok... the way to go.
right now, all's bliss n beautiful.
 
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