[CentOS] i386 or x86_64 installation

Mon Jan 22 16:05:44 UTC 2007
Matt <lm7812 at gmail.com>

> > Personally, I would only install the x86_64 distro if I was reasonably
> > sure that I would not require i386 RPMS (or minimal i386 RPMS).
> >
> > I just use i386 on all workstations and I use x86_64 on servers ... and
> > even on servers, only ones that will really be under heavy load or will
> > definitely not need i386 packages.

What are advantages of 64 bit OS anyway?  I was thinking with i386 the
max RAM you could have was like 4 gigabyte or something?  64 bit
allows quite a bit more, right?

I am upgrading a very heavilly used email server to a AMD64 dual core
with CentOS.  I am staying with i386 since the web GUI we use lists
64bit support as beta and I do not want any problems.  The real draw
back I see is the max RAM on i386 but perhaps I am wrong.  90 percent
of our CPU load is Spamassassin.  Disk I/O is likely a big bottle neck
as well.  Currently we run 2 gigabyte of RAM but will likely move to
4G of DDR2 RAM.  Moving from PATA to SATA drives as well.

Matt