Re: Install i386 or amd64?

[Brett Lymn <blymn%internode.on.net@localhost>]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 05:30:47PM -0500, jmitchel%bigjar.com@localhost wrote:
> >

Quote all of it:

>>> You are still limited to a 32bit address space in the process so you
>>> still can't go over the 4Gb memory limit and that is divided between
>>> kernel and user space hence why a process gets 2(ish)Gb.  These
>>> limitations don't apply to a true 64bit system.

Note the mention of division between kernel and user space.  Yes, I
could have made it blindingly obvious the 4Gb limit applied to the
process... mea culpa.  You can stuff more memory into an i386 PAE
capable machine and have more processes but it does not take away the
limitations on those processes.

> 
> When did we start talking about a per-process limit, versus how much
> memory the OS can operate?
>

When PAE was mentioned.

 This is an important distinction to make, given
> that the original poster said:
> 
> "Actually the B590 comes with 2GB RAM"
> 
> That's the laptop he was installing NetBSD on. And laptops or desktops
> with 2,4, or 8GB are going to common machines that users could ask about
> installing NetBSD on. Mentioning a 4GB per process limit to these people
> is absurd.
>

What? To actually mention a technical limitation of i386/PAE?  That
particular laptop can support up to 8Gb of RAM so it is feasible that
someone could install a 32bit NetBSD using PAE to access all the memory
and then wonder why their applications can only see 2-3Gb.  It happens.

> If other users have questions about what port
> to run on a laptop or desktop and read this thread it would just confuse
> them. This is netbsd-users, not tech-kern, or even port-i386/port-amd64.
> 

In that case, why mention PAE at all?  There was pretty clear advice
prior to your email recommending just running amd64.  Your message
looked to be implying that i386/PAE was just as functional as amd64.
This is not the case.

> I think he (and maybe you) just want to show how smart you are, tossing
> out facts that are meaningless trivia in the current context, rather than
> paying attention to and answering questions from users.
> 

This paragraph was totally unnecessary and pretty disrespectful to two
NetBSD developers.

-- 
Brett Lymn
Staple Guns: because duct tape doesn't make that KerCHUNK sound - xkcd.com