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Comment by ra | Hacker News Reader

No. Memory > 4GB is not a reason to use 64bit.

If you want to address > 4GB of RAM on 32bit, install the PAE kernel. I think the meta package is called linux-generic-pae.

Use 64bit if you want to run applications that will benefit from it.

EDIT: If in doubt, use the 32 bit one as it will give you less friction for general purpose desktop use.

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He said processes accessing more than 4 gb, not total memory - aren't individual processes are still limited to 4 gb of memory with PAE?

I don't know the technical reason, but most 32 bit apps on Linux are limited to 2GB (2^31 bytes).

As jsprinkles alluded to in his post, the 2GB limit (or 1GB or 3GB, depending on kernel configuration) is to allow space for the kernel.

Less depending on where the kernel split is. 3 GB under Linux usually.

If you want to upgrade to 11.04 with a PAE kernel and proprietary Nvidia drivers, be careful: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-common/+bug...

I find that in order to run Eclipse properly with lots of plug-ins, a fairly big project and Tomcat running at the same time you NEED 4gb. Yes, Java uses a lot of memory but I have 9 gb in my desktop so I'm just fine thanks. 4gb dimms are available for about $54, according to Pricewatch, so quit complaining.

PAE kernel is really only useful in the special case that you have some ancient 32-bit server hardware that supports > 4GB. Anyone else over 4GB should run 64-bit.

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