[Quantian-general] AMD64, Quantian, and laptops

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

Hi Emmanuel,

Grain-of-salt alert as I don't own a 64-bit system ...

On 16 September 2005 at 10:34, Emmanuel Paradis wrote:
| Dear all,
| 
| I have seen a few mails in the archives of this list about Quantian in
| 64-bit mode. I am considering buying a laptop with an Athlon64 chip. My
| plan is to install Quantian, then eventually other(s) kernel(s),
| including 64-bit ones to have the possibility to run 64-bit applications.
| 
| My questions are:
| 
| 1/ Has anybody some experience with the installation of Quantian on a
| similar machine?

Not me, sorry.  Others may be able to help here.
 
| 2/ Since Quantian is only 32-bit, are there some inconvenients to use it
| with a 64-bit chip? Dirk wrote in a previous post:
| 
| > You could of course run in 32bit on the amd64
| > chips/system -- there will be a point where this is faster
| > than running non-clustered in 64bit mode, no?
| 
| It is not clear to me whether this applies to my present problem.

As I recall, I meant that in a somewhat sloppy sense that Quantian and
openMosix could combine several 64-bit machines in a 32-bit cluster which
could still outperform running a single 64 bit machine running solo.
 
| 3/ Is it worth installing a 64-bit kernel on a machine which is
| obviously limited in its RAM (1 Gb, or maybe 2)?

Fair point. I heard that the 64bit machines like more ram, everything else
being constant.  They are said to be fast, and may well be "future proof".

On the other hand 32-bit works well so I'd probably stick with that. 

Hope this helps,  Dirk

-- 
Statistics: The (futile) attempt to offer certainty about uncertainty.
         -- Roger Koenker, 'Dictionary of Received Ideas of Statistics'