Which OS, 32 or 64 bit?

[ua549]

I'm a newbie to FreeBSD (or any Unix like OS) and currently setting up a desktop. My hardware is: Dual Xeon E5405 Quads, 16GB Mem, Areca 12xx, 4TB Raid 5, DVD burner, Quadro NVS 290 and LCD 1680 x 1050 display. Is there any advantage or disadvantage in the selection of 32 bit or 64 bit OS versions?

[tad1214]

64 Bit will let you use more than ~3.5 GB of ram, so that is key in your case. However, don't expect blazing performance under X (GUI) because there is no Propietary nvidia driver for 64-bit, although the NVS series aren't exactly 3d Performance All starts to begin with. I would say 100% go with 64 bit. The amd64 port is what you would use, rather than the IA64

[vermaden]

You have a lotof RAM, use 64bit version because with 32bit you will have to cope with PAE.

[gkontos]

Originally Posted by ua549

I'm a newbie to FreeBSD (or any Unix like OS) and currently setting up a desktop. My hardware is: Dual Xeon E5405 Quads, 16GB Mem, Areca 12xx, 4TB Raid 5, DVD burner, Quadro NVS 290 and LCD 1680 x 1050 display. Is there any advantage or disadvantage in the selection of 32 bit or 64 bit OS versions?

Sounds like a super workstation
Like the others said 64bit is the way to go except for the nvidia compromise. Out of curiosity, what type of work you mainly do on that workstation?

George

[ua549]

This is a 2D workstation used for large format photo editing and such. I don't know that I've ever used 3D graphics.
Will a Linux 64 bit driver work with FBSD?

The desktop will also run up to 4 guest operating systems. It is part of my home network. (I'm retired.)

What are the issues with PAE?

[BSDfan666]

Originally Posted by ua549

Will a Linux 64 bit driver work with FBSD?

No, 2 completely different operating systems.

Originally Posted by ua549

What are the issues with PAE?

With an x86 system you can only access up to 4GB of address space, (pow(2, 32)..), systems starting with the Pentium Pro/Athlon increased the address bus size to 36 bits... a hack in reality. (Registers/pointers are still 32 bits in length..).

On a PAE compatible system, all memory mapped above 32bit physical is made available to the system, but no single application can use more then 4 GB of ram.

Use the 64 bit port... assuming the nv(4) driver supports your card, 2D support is more then sufficient, if not, vesa(4) is your only option.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by ua549

Will a Linux 64 bit driver work with FBSD?

No.

What are the issues with PAE?

Not all 32-bit drivers are PAE-safe. Even though the kernel can map memory above 4 GB for programs to use, some drivers can't handle memory addresses that are above the 4 GB barriere, and will cause hiccups, memory corruption, system instability, and so on.

And even if the drivers can handle PAE, each application is still limited to 4 GB of virtual address space. PAE just lets you run multiple apps each with their own 4 GB space.

PAE is really quite a hack. If you need to access more than 4 GB of RAM, go with a 64-bit OS.

[ua549]

64 bit is is.

[BSDfan666]

That was so awesome! phoenix and I posted almost the exact same thing!

Clearly we shared a brain at that moment, I'm freaking out a little..