32 bits

[oneleded]

8 bits is long gone. i remember 16bit programs more, then they bit the dust [no pun intended]. soon 32bit will, being replaced by 64bit, followed by 128bit..
anybody care to speculate on 32bit. it wont be too much longer. a year or 2, maybe 4. firefox has dropped 32bit support recently, i think firefox support for 32bit, last till august, this year 2018.:( oh well, progress in its many forms an fashions..

[pauljw]

8 bits is long gone. i remember 16bit programs more, then they bit the dust [no pun intended]. soon 32bit will, being replaced by 64bit, followed by 128bit..
anybody care to speculate on 32bit. it wont be too much longer. a year or 2, maybe 4. firefox has dropped 32bit support recently, i think firefox support for 32bit, last till august, this year 2018.:( oh well, progress in its many forms an fashions..

It can't happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned. Even 10yr old systems have 64bit processors in them. Why would anyone expect devs to support a platform that virtually no one is using. It's hard enough to keep the current systems up to date and safe without then turning around and duplicating the efforts for antiquated platforms.

For a couple hundred dollars, you can buy a modern i3 or i5 laptop w/4G RAM and 500G hard drive on eBay any day of the week. Time to move into the modern era. JMHO

[oneleded]

good point

[pauljw]

I do understand, sometimes we have a system for several years that we've painstakingly configured to be the "perfect" system for our use. But over time they just become too outdated and unsupportable. It's happened to me several times and it's always painful to start over, yet it can be fun playing with new technology and the newer software for it. As I get older, the fun factor isn't what it used to be, but I keep telling myself that the mental challenge is good for me. :)

[mastablasta]

just checked and while we use 64 bit on work PC, programs such as office, ERP + some legacy stuff are all 32 bit.

not so long ago there were 32 bit atoms still made there are also plenty 32bit ARMs. i would imagine that at least in the business environment the 32bit is not going away any time soon.

i am not quite sure why it held on for so long (16bit ->32 bit change was faster as i remember) but i guess it has something to do with bad experience with some 64bit apps at the start. even now some opensource apps that are made for 64bit windows 10 do not work properly on all machines while the 32 bit ones work just fine.

[oneleded]

probably wont go away in the government either, here for a while. they seem to lag behind 20, 30 years, or longer.:p

[Paddy Landau]

As a number, 32-bit is limited to ± 2 billion. That's just not enough for modern times; it's only 2Gb.

As a number, 64-bit is limited to ± 9 quintillion (around 9 times 10^18, or 9 exabytes). That is a gigantic number, enough to last us for well past the foreseeable future.

Unless quantum computing opens up an unimagined need (like, really unimagined), it is unlikely that we'll ever need a 128-bit machine. Because 128-bit is limited to a humongous gazillion (nearly twice 10^38 to be specific), which makes 64-bit look like a miniscule dot. It even makes the number of atoms in the sun look piddly.

So don't worry about conversion to 128-bit. It's not going to happen in our lifetime, or that of our children or grandchildren.

Disclaimer: I could be wrong…

[poorguy]

@ Paddy Landau

That's mind blowing as hell :confused: and good to know that my old computers will still be usable throughout the rest of my lifetime. :D

Yeah I used to be a die hard 32 bit user it was the norm and now I'm in the modern 64 bit world and still using 10 year old computers. ;)

[HermanAB]

There has been all kinds of processors, including 4 bits, 24 bits, 48 bits *and* 128 bits (DEC VAX for example). I think there even was a 12 bit calculator chip.

At university, I designed a 24 bit processor and implemented all of two instructions in micro code: add and xor - W00h00.

[Paddy Landau]

There has been all kinds of processors, including … 128 bits
Woah! That's crazy. Some of those old machines, as I recall, had many CPU instructions (before RISC became popular), so for that reason they needed larger words for efficiency. But 128-bit? Wow. They were looking into the far future, ha ha!

[oneleded]

i got lubuntu, on the old 32 bit windows i got in 2000. and while, when i upgrade, to a more advanced system. i still want to keep lubuntu. i have to learn a lot, to, still use this os. when learning how to use a free system, even being free to learn how.. why even try to learn, when its as windows. and uncomfortable zone, spy's. i'm only 63, yet, i still need to learn.
innovation, comes from desperation, and new ideals. why, keep older things going?, because it leads to progress, an innovation. getting old tech, to work well, makes new tech work better. if linux was only for new tech, i would be the less for it.

[JayKay3OOO]

We're at the best point of computer technology at the moment - At least up to the point where we work out how to get it to do all our jobs and we're all just computer mechanics working out how to make a computer to do that job too - Oh skynet, were you such a crazy idea....:popcorn:

[lammert-nijhof]

I just installed 32-bits Peppermint 9 Respin on a 2003 Pentium 4 HT with 2 x 40 GB of IDE disks. It uses btrfs with "RAID-0" and LZO compression. It boots in 45 seconds.

I hate those modern times, there is no time anymore to fetch a cup of coffee during booting, even not with a 32-bits PC.

This beautiful piece of antiques from 15½ years ago has been made very useful again with super modern Linux Software. What hardware do we have here:
- A case with Windows 98-SE sticker from Compaq
- A motherboard with a last update of October 2003
- A Pentium 4 HT on 3.0 GHz (32 bits) a CPU with dual memory access. Very modern for 2003.
- 2 x 1 GB DDR memory at 400 MHz
- Classic PCI sound card
- 2 x 40 GB IDE disks, each with ~60 MB/s throughput
- 1 x DVD ROM
- 17" Philips Monitor (CRT) at 1280 x 1024
- 600 Watt power-supply, as a bonus for the purchase of a new cabinet for my future AMD Ryzen PC. The power-supply had 2 old Molex connectors for the old IDE disks.

Firefox loads in ~1 second from the cache with only one exception; the 1st time after booting (5 seconds). Who needs YouTube HD videos, if you can run it at 480p? The cache size using Firefox is >1 GB.

I think we should keep 32-bits. Who needs >4 GB, it runs perfectly in 2 GB :)

[mastablasta]

.... we're all just computer mechanics working out how to make a computer to do that job too ....

meh, they will do that as well. they already compose songs and such. the programming will be probably something like programing the computer in star trek.

"computer take me to the nearest M planet and drop out of warp at teleport distance".

[poorguy]

I just installed 32-bits Peppermint 9 Respin on a 2003 Pentium 4 HT with 2 x 40 GB of IDE disks. It uses btrfs with "RAID-0" and LZO compression. It boots in 45 seconds.

I hate those modern times, there is no time anymore to fetch a cup of coffee during booting, even not with a 32-bits PC.

This beautiful piece of antiques from 15½ years ago has been made very useful again with super modern Linux Software. What hardware do we have here:
- A case with Windows 98-SE sticker from Compaq
- A motherboard with a last update of October 2003
- A Pentium 4 HT on 3.0 GHz (32 bits) a CPU with dual memory access. Very modern for 2003.
- 2 x 1 GB DDR memory at 400 MHz
- Classic PCI sound card
- 2 x 40 GB IDE disks, each with ~60 MB/s throughput
- 1 x DVD ROM
- 17" Philips Monitor (CRT) at 1280 x 1024
- 600 Watt power-supply, as a bonus for the purchase of a new cabinet for my future AMD Ryzen PC. The power-supply had 2 old Molex connectors for the old IDE disks.

Firefox loads in ~1 second from the cache with only one exception; the 1st time after booting (5 seconds). Who needs YouTube HD videos, if you can run it at 480p? The cache size using Firefox is >1 GB.

I think we should keep 32-bits. Who needs >4 GB, it runs perfectly in 2 GB :)
Peppermint 9 is an excellent Linux Distro.

Have a look at this if you really want to make that computer fly.

https://antixlinux.com/about/

[oneleded]

I just installed 32-bits Peppermint 9 Respin on a 2003 Pentium 4 HT with 2 x 40 GB of IDE disks. It uses btrfs with "RAID-0" and LZO compression. It boots in 45 seconds.

I hate those modern times, there is no time anymore to fetch a cup of coffee during booting, even not with a 32-bits PC.

This beautiful piece of antiques from 15½ years ago has been made very useful again with super modern Linux Software. What hardware do we have here:
- A case with Windows 98-SE sticker from Compaq
- A motherboard with a last update of October 2003
- A Pentium 4 HT on 3.0 GHz (32 bits) a CPU with dual memory access. Very modern for 2003.
- 2 x 1 GB DDR memory at 400 MHz
- Classic PCI sound card
- 2 x 40 GB IDE disks, each with ~60 MB/s throughput
- 1 x DVD ROM
- 17" Philips Monitor (CRT) at 1280 x 1024
- 600 Watt power-supply, as a bonus for the purchase of a new cabinet for my future AMD Ryzen PC. The power-supply had 2 old Molex connectors for the old IDE disks.

Firefox loads in ~1 second from the cache with only one exception; the 1st time after booting (5 seconds). Who needs YouTube HD videos, if you can run it at 480p? The cache size using Firefox is >1 GB.

I think we should keep 32-bits. Who needs >4 GB, it runs perfectly in 2 GB :)

i have near the same set up. a dell, optiplex 270. i can add 2 more memory, at 1GB DDR 400 MHz. to the motherboard.
on my 2nd HD, i have lubuntu installed. it takes a bit to start, but is so much faster than XP, when i visit xp, on the 1st HD, i cant believe how slow it is to start, or shut down.
once ya get a shot of linux, is enough to want more.

[oneleded]

even the small dristro's for the most part, are going 64 bit's. sum, of the linux sites say, with in two years, 32 bit's will be gone. it had a good run though. ya cant knock that. 64 bit's, will it run that long? dont know. windows XP, had a long spell. after it, more an more version's. even the light dristro's, linux are going 64 bit's,, a sign of the times. time to upgrade, an understatement big time. lols
on the side, ford keeps making their trucks bigger. dont know why. my small 85 ford ranger would get 27mpg, on the open road, pulling a fully loaded john boat, camping stuff, an such. the newer trucks, 15-16 miles per gallon on the open road, huge, as find a parking spot,[granted the ranger i had was small,4-cyl], an now all the companies, US, want to get rid of small vehicles. crazy, aint it. sorry, i got carried away..and off subject.

[kpatz]

When 16 bits became the norm in the MS-DOS days, even Bill Gates said we would never need more than 640K of memory. I remember those days (yes... I'm a geezer)

Then when 32 bits became popular with the 386 and higher, we could then access 4 GB of memory. Back then, that was a LOT... never imagined we'd max that out, especially since virtual memory could be even bigger on these chips. Now we're buying machines with at least 8 GB, and more often, 16 GB RAM standard, and high-end machines with 32GB or more. I remember when hard drives were measured in tens of megabytes. LOL.

Now we're in 64 bits and have plenty of address space for any amount of RAM we're likely to have now, but for how long? Even though each bit doubles the address space, and the numbers are increasing exponentially, we may end up getting into the exabyte RAM territory in another 20 years. And we'll be asking when 64-bit will die as we install 128-bit Ubuntu 40.04 LTS. LOL.

There's additional benefits to "more bits" besides memory size... data size. 64 bit CPUs can process 8 bytes at once, and assuming the data bus is 64 bits, can write 8 bytes to and from RAM at once. It can do integer math up to 2^64 without additional instructions. 128 bits will increase that even more (16 bytes at once).

[ubotbuddy]

My old analog system runs on a binary system, and my processor id faster than anything on the market and it is 100% hack proof.

OH wait! Are we talking about computer OS's?

I haven't reboot my brain in years and I still dream in Assembler. Ahhhhh the good ole days.

Yes, I'm an old geezer too.

Buddy

[Shibblet]

With emulation and virtualization technologies available, going from 32bit to 64bit should be a no-brainer.

[oneleded]

tis a sad day, yet, a better day. i some feel like i lost a best friend.. good thing i met linux...

[sisco311]

My old analog system runs on a binary system, and my processor id faster than anything on the market and it is 100% hack proof.

OH wait! Are we talking about computer OS's?



Not enough data. But...

If androids do dream of electric sheep, then there is a chance (depending on the observer) that your old analog system runs on a quantum computer.

42 :)

[oneleded]

is 42 the ultimate answer?
work's for me

[oneleded]

Ya ever get the feeling it's time to move on, but the HP deskjet 5150, dont use much ink, and the Logitech, Wireless Optical Trackman Mouse, you will not ever find anything like that again.
yes, i dream of the 55,1st edition, Chevy Truck Apache, an much more. when andriod's dream of electronic sheep,
then they will find eventually out, 42, is the answer..

[TheFu]

There will be embedded 32-bit processors used for the next 50 yrs.
i386 CPUs are still being made today for embedded, industrial, use.
There are computers sized smaller than your pinky fingernail. They don't need 64-bit.

I earned a living porting 16-bit programs to 32-bit and again, porting 32-bit programs to 64-bit systems. Most of WINE is still 32-bit, so if you are a gamer, the dropping of 32-bit support by Ubuntu and other Linux distros is a huge problem for you. I have probably 20 games from the 1990s that are fun to run still. There isn't any 64-bit version and there never will be. I'll probably need to install Debian to run those games ever again. Some of them weren't cheap - over $100.

IPv6 is 128-bit addressing, BTW. I've heard that it is large enough to assign every molecule in the known universe a unique IP. ZFS has been using 128-bit addressing for 15+ yrs now. If you work with huge data, you want more data transferred in larger blocks to speed up processing. The data channels always lead before the CPUs can handle larger instructions natively.

There have been very odd size CPUs, which seems counter intuitive, since binary leads to powers of 2 solutions.
There have been 24, 26, 28, 31, 60 bit computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31-bit lots of other sizes that weren't too popular, but 31-bit was used on IBM 370s, which was crazy popular.

Don't be so elitist. Smaller bit-sized computing has a place.

[superian]

Most of WINE is still 32-bit, so if you are a gamer, the dropping of 32-bit support by Ubuntu and other Linux distros is a huge problem for you.

I get that servers is where Canonical make money, but this is how you alienate a big chunk of your desktop users.

It's particularly striking that the issue with Steam and WINE was known on the mailing list that decided this over a year ago, but this announcement seems to have come as an unpleasant surprise to both.

[Artim]

They may continue the 32-bit libraries that Wine depends on... if they don't care to lose a bunch of desktop gamers.

[TheFu]

I get that servers is where Canonical make money, but this is how you alienate a big chunk of your desktop users.

It's particularly striking that the issue with Steam and WINE was known on the mailing list that decided this over a year ago, but this announcement seems to have come as an unpleasant surprise to both.

They knew it was coming, but like a death in the family by someone with a chronic illness, it is still a surprise when it actually happens.
Valve developer says they won't support Ubuntu after 18.04.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/06/steam-announces-that-its-dropping-support-for-ubuntu

I don't game much, but I have a few games that I'd like to run from the 1990s at some point.

[wildmanne39]

They may continue the 32-bit libraries that Wine depends on... if they don't care to lose a bunch of desktop gamers.
At the link below users can follow and contribute to the discussion of 32 bit support in Ubuntu.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2019-June/000245.html

There seems to have been a miscommunication that there will no 32 bit support from 19.10 on but apparently there will be, it will just be frozen updates like many of the programs that use 32 bit anyway.

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/i386-architecture-will-be-dropped-starting-with-eoan-ubuntu-19-10/11263/84?u=d0od

[freemedia2018]

There seems to have been a miscommunication that there will no 32 bit support from 19.10 on but apparently there will be, it will just be frozen updates

That miscommunication has taken the tech press by storm. If there are corrections to be made, they will need to travel far beyond this forum. Steam is supposedly dropping Ubuntu support over this. Wine is concerned as well.

[wildmanne39]

That miscommunication has taken the tech press by storm. If there are corrections to be made, they will need to travel far beyond this forum. Steam is supposedly dropping Ubuntu support over this. Wine is concerned as well.

Indeed, but I am sure Canonical will work it out.

[oneleded]

@ The Fubut; 31-bit was used on IBM 370s, which was crazy popular.
i thought there was something not quite with with mostly 2 squared, an beyond, being used.
maybe just using the prime number's? Hmmm 37
or maybe multible's of 42

[mastablasta]

That miscommunication has taken the tech press by storm. If there are corrections to be made, they will need to travel far beyond this forum. Steam is supposedly dropping Ubuntu support over this. Wine is concerned as well.


Indeed, but I am sure Canonical will work it out.

"PR & marketing is easy, anyone can do it.", they said. :) same goes for sales etc. seen some brilliant engineers take over these things in projects they were assigned (or volunteered for) only to be brought to the ground by the market. hard.

in any case i do hope they will continue to offer the 32 bit libraries.

i am upset that they declared the main reason to be a financial one. but (at first glance) the pros clearly outweigh the cons and the financial part could have been resolved by crowdfunding, marketing or asking interested parties for funding. surely we are not talking about a million Euros per year. can one person maintain this? if yes, how much would it cost to hire them for a year?

i can understand they do not want to package the 32 bit apps, but the libraries that are used for backwards driver compatibility, wine, games... must stay. windows understands backwards compatibility, while in linux we have hardware compatibility dropped and now (it seems) software.

i am still crossing my fingers that they keep the libraries around at least until we get hardware that can run some kind of 32Box emulator. i doubt this will happen any time soon. the jumps in PC computing power are not as big as they were back in the 90's and 00's.

[mastablasta]

well.... not sure if this will calm anyone down.

Statement on 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS:
https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-for-ubuntu-19-10-and-20-04-lts

also is Debian dropping support? aren't these packages the same in both OS?

[Artim]

Debian isn't dropping 32-bit support yet.

[vanquishedangel]

Honestly my opinion on this:

OK guys just to point out, the first mass produced 64 bit processors will now be 16 years years old (actually some are older) Any ones computer these days is capable of 64 bit, and therefore should be running a 64bit OS already. If you decided not to run a 64 bit OS knowing it will eventually replace 32 bit, and it has been announced for years now that this will happen, it is your fault.
As for programs not running in 64 bit, almost all do nowadays, and if a developer has not made their program 64 bit capable by now, it is that developers fault and you need to get on them about it, they are keeping us in archaic technology.
As for wine games, wine still runs 16 bit games fine and support has been gone for 16 bit forever now, so I think that will be fine.
The cost to maintain 32 bit when most are now on 64 bit, is outweighing the benefits of keeping it. I think they are dropping their 32 bit os, and they should be.

[uRock]

Honestly my opinion on this:

OK guys just to point out, the first mass produced 64 bit processors will now be 16 years years old (actually some are older) Any ones computer these days is capable of 64 bit, and therefore should be running a 64bit OS already. If you decided not to run a 64 bit OS knowing it will eventually replace 32 bit, and it has been announced for years now that this will happen, it is your fault.
As for programs not running in 64 bit, almost all do nowadays, and if a developer has not made their program 64 bit capable by now, it is that developers fault and you need to get on them about it, they are keeping us in archaic technology.
As for wine games, wine still runs 16 bit games fine and support has been gone for 16 bit forever now, so I think that will be fine.
The cost to maintain 32 bit when most are now on 64 bit, is outweighing the benefits of keeping it. I think they are dropping their 32 bit os, and they should be.

This reminds me of why I stopped using Windows. I have hardware that was no longer supported when Windows 7 came out and even more hardware that became unsupported with Windows 10. Linux has always been advertised as being able to run on older hardware, but now we're supposed to just toss our hardware?

On the software side of things; While working at one of my previous employers I would get calls from people still using Windows XP, because they had custom software that would cost thousands to have rewritten to work on newer systems. I empathized with those people and I still do today.

People should not have to throw things away just because there's something newer. It is wasteful.

[oneleded]

I bought a gaming motherboard once, because my nephew used my computer. then he got a laptop, right after, and no longer used my PC. it is a S-series GICABYTE. i cant game.. anyhow, it runs 32 32/64 64 bits. still, it dont solve a problem if 32 bit, is not supported, i suppose.

[mastablasta]

People should not have to throw things away just because there's something newer. It is wasteful.

i have windows XP on my PC, i added a new disk where i installed Kubuntu to it. I bought the PC in 2004 with the intention of replacing the CPU later on with Phenom. I didn't do that so now i am stuck with single core AMD64. It had a few smaller upgrades and replacements (PSU, GPU, hard disk), but overall the configuration remained the same (e.g. replaced GPU has similar computing power, just a bit more ram). now the PC does all i need it to do. sure it is not the fastest (benchmark is about 500 points, compared to nowadays 10.000+ points), but it can do web browsing well, i can do online banking on it, tax return submissions, office work, picture editing, videos (watching and editing up to a point)... it can even run most directx9 as well as games up to about 2013 (but it depends on their GPU and CPU demands). i don't have that much time for games these days, but the kids do and they would use it for that. i also enjoy it sometimes to relax a bit.

so why should i throw it away if it works and works well for my needs? i though it would die and have been planning on getting a new one for a while, but it just keeps on working. also spending 60 EUR on a new 80 bronze PSU replacement is cheaper than getting a new 400 EUR PC.

[CatKiller]

i have windows XP on my PC, i added a new disk where i installed Kubuntu to it. I bought the PC in 2004 with the intention of replacing the CPU later on with Phenom. I didn't do that so now i am stuck with single core AMD64.

Unsurprisingly, an AMD64 processor is perfectly capable of running software compiled for the AMD64 architecture. The fact that distros are starting to no longer provide i386 install images won't affect this 15-year-old computer in the slightest.

[The Cog]

It affects all my netbooks though. Useful mini-laptops with (typically) a 7 inch screen.

[uRock]

i have windows XP on my PC, i added a new disk where i installed Kubuntu to it. I bought the PC in 2004 with the intention of replacing the CPU later on with Phenom. I didn't do that so now i am stuck with single core AMD64. It had a few smaller upgrades and replacements (PSU, GPU, hard disk), but overall the configuration remained the same (e.g. replaced GPU has similar computing power, just a bit more ram). now the PC does all i need it to do. sure it is not the fastest (benchmark is about 500 points, compared to nowadays 10.000+ points), but it can do web browsing well, i can do online banking on it, tax return submissions, office work, picture editing, videos (watching and editing up to a point)... it can even run most directx9 as well as games up to about 2013 (but it depends on their GPU and CPU demands). i don't have that much time for games these days, but the kids do and they would use it for that. i also enjoy it sometimes to relax a bit.

so why should i throw it away if it works and works well for my needs? i though it would die and have been planning on getting a new one for a while, but it just keeps on working. also spending 60 EUR on a new 80 bronze PSU replacement is cheaper than getting a new 400 EUR PC.

Indeed!


It affects all my netbooks though. Useful mini-laptops with (typically) a 7 inch screen.

I only have one Netbook, but it refuses to die. It is getting a fresh install of Debian 10 as soon as it releases. I am in no hurry since my desktop is running the Motion cameras for now.

[vanquishedangel]

Again, most of these are 64bit capable. And to those talking about software, again the developer choose to make their program 32bit KNOWING 64 bit would replace it, the problem is with the developer. All computers going back almost 20 years now, are 64 bit capable.

[oneleded]

still dumber than a box of rocks, when it comes to linux.. "ext4", dont that relate to 64 bts in some, form or fashion? 2 more memory cards, i think i can extend the old dell out for a moment longer.. as it runs now, its enough to suit me.. 2002, model dell 270..

[CatKiller]

"ext4", dont that relate to 64 bts in some, form or fashion?
Not in the slightest. It's the version of the ext filesystem that followed ext3, which was the version that followed ext2.

[ardouronerous]

I need 32-bit to run my Canon printer though, the printer driver available in CUPS isn't as good, it's feature limited compared to the driver provided by Canon, and Canon only released their driver for 32-bit.

And reading some other threads, Brother also only provides their printer drivers for 32-bit Linux only.

[mörgæs]

No need to let go of the printers There are plenty of 32 bit capable distros to choose from outside the Buntu world.

[oneleded]

can i use GTP, instead of MBR on 1st hard drive? 2002 dell, 270 0ptiplex. i deleted lubuntu, sda1. lost mbr, i cant access sdb, as yet. i will. sda is 250GB linux drive. i messed up the grub. while i am at it though, i just want to know..
thats not the question i want to ask. sorry..
i have to reread the article again. i think it runs towards; can i change my HDD drive to GPT.
i'm on a 2002 Dell Optiplex (spell check cant help me on that one)..
my 250GB hard drive should be able to run GPT, if i read the article correctly.. or is it my BIOS, should be Legacy.
BIOS sounds more like it. i think my BIOS can handle it, and my Hard drive, also. thanks, i got to ext file system understood now.
just to see if GPT is similar..

[oneleded]

32 is just about so dead., at least that are my thoughts. at [once appoint a time], i was worried about ext4, now, i suffer through XFS file system.,
just a thing. my marble mouse, is still working from 2002, a mouse from Logitech,. wonder if those people will ever wake up. there is another world, that dont include windows. and its getting more so., at least in my future...
now, to get around some other places of influence. ed

[QIII]

As a number, 32-bit is limited to ± 2 billion. That's just not enough for modern times; it's only 2Gb.

As a number, 64-bit is limited to ± 9 quintillion (around 9 times 10^18, or 9 exabytes). That is a gigantic number, enough to last us for well past the foreseeable future.

Unless quantum computing opens up an unimagined need (like, really unimagined), it is unlikely that we'll ever need a 128-bit machine. Because 128-bit is limited to a humongous gazillion (nearly twice 10^38 to be specific), which makes 64-bit look like a miniscule dot. It even makes the number of atoms in the sun look piddly.

So don't worry about conversion to 128-bit. It's not going to happen in our lifetime, or that of our children or grandchildren.

Disclaimer: I could be wrong…

I bet the people running the simulation that we don't realize we inhabit use at least 512-bit architecture. :)

That should just about cover all the sub-atomic particles in the universe AND account for all the socks without mates in all of our dressers.

[karl47]

I changed the system to a 64 bit system a long time ago, because I could not even install anything normally

[oneleded]

supposedly there are 12, last i heard, sub atomic particles, and when you multiply them against all the missing socks, + shoes on the side of the road, you get a multi-verse.
hate to be there, if they collide. could ya imagine, if you got 12 or so, people just screaming at ya, that look the same. identical

[Paddy Landau]

supposedly there are 12, last i heard, sub atomic particles
Seventeen known elementary particles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subatomic_particle#Classification), and more if you include composite ones.

[MoebusNet]

There are plenty of 32 bit capable distros to choose from outside the Buntu world.

That may have been true in 2019, but here about a year later, 32-bit distros are getting thin on the ground. The most convenient (for me anyway) has been the BunsenLabs Lithium spin on 32-bit Debian. It gives a usable desktop out of the box that runs on my hardware and can run as a Live_CD for installation and hardware compatibility testing!

I can understand all of the 64-bit fanboys' justifications for their preferences, but my low-mileage 32-bit-only Pentium-M notebook keeps chugging away at everything except HD video. It's keyboard is even better than my high-dollar OEM-Linux notebook from 2013; not surprising since it originally cost twice as much. I can't justify trashing my old 32-bit notebook until I've wrung the last bit of usability out of it.

[mastablasta]

keyboards are a different matter. for some reason they don't make them like they used to. but they do make them more shinny.

the OS switch and the CPU switch should have been done by 2010. but for some reason 32 bit CPUs were continued to be designed and made. on the other hand the software didn't have major reasons to upgrade. until very recently the default office install continued to be 32 bit. i believe we have 32 bit on company PCs as well. the change between 16 bit and 32 bit happened a lot faster.

[Shibblet]

then they will find eventually out, 42, is the answer..

They already know 42 is the answer. They just don't know what the question is... ;-)


They may continue the 32-bit libraries that Wine depends on... if they don't care to lose a bunch of desktop gamers.

You know, I understand the reason for going with 64-Bit processors, and the advancement of technology, etc.
But some of those old 8-Bit games were downright genius. Some of the old 8-Bit Nintendo games were designed almost "perfectly," to coin the phrase. I mean, how hard is it to pop a cartridge of Super Mario Brothers into your Nintendo, and just play.

No instruction manual necessary... just play. And ANYBODY can figure out what you need to do in less than 5 minutes. Go to the right, jump over things... and then you start learning about hidden blocks, warp pipes, warp zones, and hidden areas accidentally.

I will never forget the time my friend and I were playing "The Legend of Zelda." We were just looking around for stuff, and wanted to attack an enemy with the candle "fire." Well, it missed, and landed on a bush... next thing you know, the bush burned away to become a staircase! That opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for us!

Anyway, I don't want to get off subject here, but I miss the "bye-gone" era for a number of reasons. And I am sure I will miss the 32-Bit era in similar ways.

[Skaperen]

don't forget, you can still run a 32-bit userland in a container (or even just a chroot) on a 64-bit kernel. so you can do the phases of 32-bit development that really need to run in 32-bit on the same machine as the other parts (like the compiler running as a cross-compiler, in 64-bit mode making 32-bit code). lots of excuses for not doing 32-bit are just not real. but there are real ones like "why train the support team on 32-bit just for the butt-end of the market".

[uRock]

The sense of humor here is awesome. Something to use my unmatched socks?

On topic, my 32 Asus netbook is still chugging along as a Motion server running Debian 10. Looks like Debian 11 will be supporting 32 bit as well. I keep thinking the netbook will die before the next release but it has proven me wrong a few times.

[lammert-nijhof]

I just installed 32-bits Peppermint 9 Respin on a 2003 Pentium 4 HT with 2 x 40 GB of IDE disks. It uses btrfs with "RAID-0" and LZO compression. It boots in 45 seconds.

I hate those modern times, there is no time anymore to fetch a cup of coffee during booting, even not with a 32-bits PC.

This beautiful piece of antiques from 15½ years ago has been made very useful again with super modern Linux Software. What hardware do we have here:
- A case with Windows 98-SE sticker from Compaq
- A motherboard with a last update of October 2003 from a HP D530 SFF
- A Pentium 4 HT on 3.0 GHz (32 bits) a CPU with dual memory access. Very modern for 2003.
- 2 x 1 GB DDR memory at 400 MHz
- Classic PCI sound card
- 2 x 40 GB IDE disks, each with ~60 MB/s throughput
- 1 x DVD ROM
- 17" Philips Monitor (CRT) at 1280 x 1024
- A new 600 Watt power-supply, as a bonus for the purchase of a new cabinet for my future AMD Ryzen PC. The power-supply had 2 old Molex connectors for the old IDE disks.

Firefox loads in ~1 second from the cache with only one exception; the 1st time after booting (5 seconds). Who needs YouTube HD videos, if you can run it at 480p? The cache size using Firefox is >1 GB.

I think we should keep 32-bits. Who needs >4 GB, it runs perfectly in 2 GB :)


Sorry, but I changed that machine completely. It now runs a headless backup-server with FreeBSD 12.1.
ZFS on Linux did not really support its 32-bits version, so I moved to FreeBSD. I use the system since June 2019 like this.
The system configuration is now:

- A case with Windows 98-SE sticker from Compaq
- A motherboard with a last update of October 2003 from a HP D530 SFF
- A Pentium 4 HT on 3.0 GHz (32 bits) a CPU with dual memory access. Very modern for 2003.
- 1 x 1 GB and 1 x 256 MB DDR memory at 400 MHz, one 1 GB stick died
- 1.2 TB of HDDs; 250 and 320 GB IDE disks 3.5" and 2 x 320 GB SATA-1 disks 2.5"
- 1 x DVD ROM and 1 x CD (not used), but mounted to keep the case closed.
- A new 600 Watt iTech power-supply, with 2 SATA and 2 Molex plugs :)

I expect the iTech power supply has a "60+ Leather" rating, since the price was DOP 800 ($15). I don't worry too much, because the original HP-SFF had a 250W power supply and the other side is protected by a 1200W Avtek Surge Protector. Note that the power supply has been by far the most expensive part, since the remainder are left-overs from the past.

The system is connected with the world by two cables: Power and Ethernet (1 Gbps). The P4 just manages 200 Mbps with a CPU load of 95% on one of the CPU threads. I use the system for ~1 hour/week, so I expect it will survive for many years, since in one year it ages say 1 week :)

[oneleded]

UN-matched socks, run perfect, within a band. cant say about the music or lyrics, to most.
that then, can work with with 8-bits, still need's to be, should be a place, to preserve it. , those that moved on, 64, the same.,
all places for all. sorta like what this forum is based on.

[kurt18947]

There was mention earlier in this thread about Brother (and perhaps other manufacturers) printer drivers being 32 bit. They still are I believe. I just installed a new MoBo combo, B450 chipset 2nd generation Ryzen processor. I'm pretty sure those are 64 bit:). I can say with certainty that current Brother printer and scanner drivers install and function just fine. So 32 bit software on 64 bit hardware seems to be a lesser issue. Trying to run 64 bit OSs on 32 bit hardware on the other hand -- thassa problem.

[Deep_Peasant]

What I remember is that by going to more bit hardware the programming efficiency becomes less. Something about having to use 32 bit length while you only need 8 bit to 'say' what u want.

[sqrooup]

Perhaps (and I noticed no one mentioning this) the reason why 32 bit is being discontinued, is the 2038 problem!
Do you remember the Y2K problem? This was when the dating convention had the year as a 2 digit number, and when it hit 1 January 2000, they thought the date would be 1 January 1900; panic ensued, planes would fall out of the sky, yadda yadda yadda! But nothing happened; why? Because software was updated to allow 4 digit years!
This isn't the only timing issue, there is the the Year 2038 problem: A background.
UNIX developed a timing system that started on 1 January 1970 UTC; using a signed 32 bit integer it counts seconds. It will reach its maximum on 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038, after which it will fall back to 20:45:52 on Friday, 13 December 1901 (yes Friday the 13th)!
How to fix this? move to a 64 bit system!

[grahammechanical]

Year 2038 problem? Fixed if someone compiles a 32 bit version of Linux 5.6 or later.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.6-32-bit-Past-Y2038

Regards

[QIII]

The Zombie Apocalypse, followed by the asteroid impact in 2037 (much bigger than the Chicxulub event that ended the reign of non-avian dinosaurs), will destroy the Earth as we know it before 2038. Only cockroaches will survive, and they don't use computers. However, 7 milliion years after that, they will have evolved to the point where they will re-invent a new sort of computer and an internet completely devoid of cat videos.

[mastablasta]

but will they use .deb or .rpm as package manager?

[uRock]

2038 is a long time for my 32bit Netbook to survive. Something tells me it won't last that long.