
AMD64 most popular architecture according to Debian popcon - mariuz
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/12/msg00002.html
======
jeltz
I am surprised there are still so many i386 installations. I have been running
mostly amd64 for quite some years now. Both for severs and desktops. I know
for sure the servers my job bought in 2007 ran amd64.

~~~
anemic
I'm running several debian i386 virtual machines. I don't see a point running
64-bit os if the memory usage stays well below 3G. And last time I ran
UnixBench on squeeze i386 was still faster than amd64.

On bare metal it's a different story, though, but I still would think that
there are more virtual servers than real ones.

~~~
zanny
When you run 64 bit it assumes all the SSE extensions, the presence of the
extra register sets, and everything between the 386 and 686 being available.
It almost always performs better with software compiled to utilize the extra
goods, even if it has slightly larger memory footprints.

~~~
Symmetry
Generally yes, you almost always see a performance increase with all the
things x86-64 brings. But the increased cache pressure from 64-bit pointers is
a real downside and the reason that pretty much every other architecture
suffers in performance when it goes to 64 bits. If something about his
workload makes it especially sensetive to cache pressure he could very well
see a performance penalty, and I'd say heavy virtualization would actually
make that more likely.

------
hollerith
Do I understand correctly that "AMD64" is the name of an instruction-set
architecture, implemented in CPUs from Intel as well as from AMD?

~~~
emillon
Yes, it's the code name of the popular Intel 64-bit architecture (which is
implemented by Intel and AMD CPUs)

~~~
X-Istence
Actually it is the popular AMD 64-bit architecture that extended the original
x86 Intel architecture. Intel begrudgingly had to implement AMD's extensions
because AMD was first to market with it.

This is also the reason why it is called AMD64. Intel for its 64-bit lineup
had bet on it's Itanium lineup of processors which included a completely new
64-bit instruction set which was not backwards compatible with Intel's 32-bit
x86 instruction set.

AMD when releasing the spec called it AMD64 (FreeBSD, Debian, *BSD), and the
name stuck for certain projects, other names are x86_64 (Apple), x64
(Sun/Oracle, Microsoft). There are a variety of ways to refer to the
instruction set, but what is sure is that AMD was the first to market with it,
so saying AMD64 is code name for the popular Intel 64-bit architecture is not
entirely correct. Intel 64 is a code name for AMD64, AMD's 64 bit extensions
to Intel's 32-bit x86 architecture.

~~~
bad_user
On Intel releasing a 64-bit architecture that wasn't compatible with x86 and
later to give in to AMD's architecture ... now that's what I call ironic :-)

------
CoffeeDregs
I still run i686-bigmem since I only have 8G and since PAE only causes a small
reduction (a couple of percent) in performance. It didn't seem worth switching
to amd64 and risking some compatibility issues. Now it seems like it's time to
switch. I'm finding some packages (not Debian specific) are built _only_ for
amd64...

------
wallstop
<http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-debian/all/all>

[http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular...](http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_on_web_servers)

Interesting statistics.

------
snake_plissken
can we confirm if anyone ever said, "3,000,000,000K of memory is enough for
anyone"?

------
toyg
Film at 11.

~~~
anonymouz
The point is that it has now passed i386 as the most popular architecture (at
least for Debian squeeze installations as measured by popcon). Certainly it
was inevitable and expected, but it's still noteworthy that it happened _now_.

~~~
mrich
I didn't expect it to take that long. Then again, there are probably many
small hobbyist servers running debian.

~~~
VLM
Generally with Debian you only install once per machine, as upgrade always
works. Its not like other distros where you pretty much have to wipe the drive
and restore from backup, or OS like windows where a new MB requires so many
new drivers you may as well wipe and replace. So any Debian box commissioned
before 2007 or so will semi-eternally run i386, even if upgraded multiple
times since then. Multi-arch is supposed to fix that.

I bit the bullet and wipe/install upgraded my home server circa 2009 but I've
got plenty of new machines still stuck on i386.

------
imglorp
It's cheaper, duh.

~~~
jlsi
Sarcasm ?

~~~
wildranter
I'd say common sense. That was the first thing I though when I read the title.

~~~
sbanach
You know this includes all recent Intels right? AMD64 here means "the 64 bit
extension to x86 that's not the Itanium one"

~~~
wildranter
No I didn't. The naming conventions for this instruction set are a bit of a
mess [0], with every company trying to stick their brand in the middle of it.
No wonder people get confused on this. Thanks for pointing that out.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64>

~~~
X-Istence
AMD was the first to market with AMD64 ... no surprise that they got to slap
their brand on it.

~~~
jeltz
Just like Intel named their competing 64 bit architecture Intel Itanium. The
AMD64 architecture won and Intel decided to license it.

~~~
potkor
In practice Itanium only competed with the existing 64-bit architectures from
the Unix vendors. Many of whom got suckered into dropping their own stuff and
moving onto Itanium, and got wiped out because of the very late &
underperforming Itanium chips (frequently called "Itanic")...

