8 ms·

AMD64 most popular architecture according to Debian popcon

43 points by mariuz 14y ago

CoffeeDregs 14y ago
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...
toyg 14y ago
Film at 11.
- anonymouz 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    I didn't expect it to take that long. Then again, there are probably many small hobbyist servers running debian.
    - VLM 14y ago
      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 14y ago
It's cheaper, duh.
- jlsi 14y ago
  Sarcasm ?
  - wildranter 14y ago
    I'd say common sense. That was the first thing I though when I read the title.
    - sbanach 14y ago
      You know this includes all recent Intels right? AMD64 here means "the 64 bit extension to x86 that's not the Itanium one"
      - wildranter 14y ago
        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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64
        X-Istence 14y ago
        AMD was the first to market with AMD64 ... no surprise that they got to slap their brand on it.
        jeltz 14y ago
        Just like Intel named their competing 64 bit architecture Intel Itanium. The AMD64 architecture won and Intel decided to license it.
jeltz 14y ago
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.
- abrahamsen 14y ago
  The number of i386 installations have been relatively constant since 2007. All the growth has been in amd64. I guess Debian is the kind of distribution you put on a computer that is going to to sit in a room and run the same non-taxing services for years without attention.
  - VLM 14y ago
    More accurate to cross out "the same non-taxing services" but otherwise basically correct.
    - abrahamsen 14y ago
      With "non-taxing" I meant "services whose load will not justify a hardware update for the next 6+ years".
  - dfc 14y ago
    Did you mean: I guess Debian is the kind of distribution you put on a computer that you want to sit in a room and run for years without a problem.
- anemic 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
hollerith 14y ago
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 14y ago
  Yes, it's the code name of the popular Intel 64-bit architecture (which is implemented by Intel and AMD CPUs)
  - 0x0 14y ago
    To be more precise, "AMD64" in this context is the same as "x86-64" (or "x64"), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 - originally created by AMD and later also licensed back to Intel for use in all the later Pentium and Core CPUs. It should not be confused with "IA64", aka the "Intel Itanium 64" architecture, which was Intel's mostly-dud non-x86 compatible attempt at 64 bit architecture, a clean break from the x86 legacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia64#Architecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia64#Architecture
  - X-Istence 14y ago
    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 14y ago
wallstop 14y ago
http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-debian/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-debian/all/all http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_on_web_servers http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular... Interesting statistics.
snake_plissken 14y ago
can we confirm if anyone ever said, "3,000,000,000K of memory is enough for anyone"?

43 points by mariuz 14y ago

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...

toyg 14y ago

Film at 11.

anonymouz 14y ago
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 14y ago
  I didn't expect it to take that long. Then again, there are probably many small hobbyist servers running debian.
  - VLM 14y ago
    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 14y ago

It's cheaper, duh.

jlsi 14y ago
Sarcasm ?
- wildranter 14y ago
  I'd say common sense. That was the first thing I though when I read the title.
  - sbanach 14y ago
    You know this includes all recent Intels right? AMD64 here means "the 64 bit extension to x86 that's not the Itanium one"
    - wildranter 14y ago
      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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64
      - X-Istence 14y ago
        AMD was the first to market with AMD64 ... no surprise that they got to slap their brand on it.
        jeltz 14y ago
        Just like Intel named their competing 64 bit architecture Intel Itanium. The AMD64 architecture won and Intel decided to license it.

jeltz 14y ago

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.

abrahamsen 14y ago
The number of i386 installations have been relatively constant since 2007. All the growth has been in amd64. I guess Debian is the kind of distribution you put on a computer that is going to to sit in a room and run the same non-taxing services for years without attention.
- VLM 14y ago
  More accurate to cross out "the same non-taxing services" but otherwise basically correct.
  - abrahamsen 14y ago
    With "non-taxing" I meant "services whose load will not justify a hardware update for the next 6+ years".
- dfc 14y ago
  Did you mean: I guess Debian is the kind of distribution you put on a computer that you want to sit in a room and run for years without a problem.
anemic 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.

hollerith 14y ago

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 14y ago
Yes, it's the code name of the popular Intel 64-bit architecture (which is implemented by Intel and AMD CPUs)
- 0x0 14y ago
  To be more precise, "AMD64" in this context is the same as "x86-64" (or "x64"), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 - originally created by AMD and later also licensed back to Intel for use in all the later Pentium and Core CPUs. It should not be confused with "IA64", aka the "Intel Itanium 64" architecture, which was Intel's mostly-dud non-x86 compatible attempt at 64 bit architecture, a clean break from the x86 legacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia64#Architecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia64#Architecture
- X-Istence 14y ago
  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 14y ago

wallstop 14y ago

http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-debian/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-debian/all/all http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_on_web_servers http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular... Interesting statistics.

snake_plissken 14y ago

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