64-bit operating system

[Beorn_Bear]

When will Raspberry Pi organization release a 64-bit operating system?! Ideally the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ will work faster if a 64-bit operating system were available in Raspbian. The current 32-bit operating system may present a bottleneck.

[wildfire]

When will Raspberry Pi organization release a 64-bit operating system?! Ideally the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ will work faster if a 64-bit operating system were available in Raspbian. The current 32-bit operating system may present a bottleneck.

I see no difference between the 3b & the 3B+ regarding 32/64bit OS's and it's been discussed several times on these forums. There are 64bit OS's available for the Pi.

[Heater]

This is an old question of course.

The consensus is that the performance gains of going to 64 bits are not worth the disruption in compatibility of Raspbian versions.

Best thing is to check this out for yourself. For example try out pi64 https://github.com/bamarni/pi64

Which I have to say has worked very well for me. I have not checked performance as such but 64 bits is needed for some software, particularly some databases.

[Crazyhead]

Bamarni doesn't work on the 3b +, all pi 3 OS are not suppored by the 3 b+ besides the original NOOBS/Raspbian

[mahjongg]

Bamarni doesn't work on the 3b +, all pi 3 OS are not suppored by the 3 b+ besides the original NOOBS/Raspbian

Like Raspbian they simply need to update their boot code and kernel, in a short while all other OS's will work. there is no reason why they cannot be updated for the PI 3B+.

in the meantime the older 3B is also still for sale.

[ejolson]

Best thing is to check this out for yourself. For example try out pi64 https://github.com/bamarni/pi64

That's an interesting 64-bit recommendation. I think there are 64-bit versions of Arch and Ubuntu that also run on the Pi 2 and 3. I wonder how the different distributions compare from reliability, security, support and performance points of view.

Note that switching from Raspbian is a jump from ARMv6 compatible code all the way to ARMv8. Certain things will run much faster and if those are the things you are interested in, then the difference can be significant.

Still, as demonstrated by the popularity of the 32-bit Raspbian for x86 processors, there is quite a bit of computer science that can be learned using a 32-bit operating system.

[raymondclark]

I too would like to see a 64 bit raspian. I have 64 bit 4.14 running but need 64 bit java and postgresql, essentially a sanctioned 64 bit package.

[Heater]

raymondclark,

I too would like to see a 64 bit raspian. I have 64 bit 4.14 running but need 64 bit java and postgresql, essentially a sanctioned 64 bit package.

I would not get too hung up on the "sanctioned" idea. Certainly don't hold your breath waiting for a 64 bit Raspbian. Supporting both 32 and 64 bit is a lot of work for somebody and will cause a lot of confusion in user land. Especially since 64 bit is not needed for 99% of users and applications of a Pi.

Rasbian is an adaption of Debian to the Pi. pi64 is a 64 bit adaption of Debian to the pi64
https://github.com/bamarni/pi64, sounds good to me.

The only issue is, will bambarni, support is creation into the future? Or will somebody? Or can we support it ourselves?

I only tried out bambarni/pi64 because I wanted to experiment building a database cluster with CockroachDB and three Pis: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/. I did not want to do the required hacks of cockroach to get it running on 32 bit machines.

It works a treat.

Also, it niggles me to think of all those transistors of the top 32 bits of registers, ALU's, busses etc in the 64 bit Pi going to waste. Something had to be done about that!

[fruitoftheloom]

Best thing is to check this out for yourself. For example try out pi64 https://github.com/bamarni/pi64

That's an interesting 64-bit recommendation. I think there are 64-bit versions of Arch and Ubuntu that also run on the Pi 2 and 3. I wonder how the different distributions compare from reliability, security, support and performance points of view.

Note that switching from Raspbian is a jump from ARMv6 compatible code all the way to ARMv8. Certain things will run much faster and if those are the things you are interested in, then the difference can be significant.

Still, as demonstrated by the popularity of the 32-bit Raspbian for x86 processors, there is quite a bit of computer science that can be learned using a 32-bit operating system.

Raspbian does not run on x86 CPU machines, it is a fork of Debian ARMHF..

[ejolson]

Raspbian does not run on x86 CPU machines, it is a fork of Debian ARMHF.

Thanks for the clarification. It seems the version of Raspbian for the x86 is actually called The Raspberry Pi Desktop OS for PC and Mac.

[royhenderson]

There are 64bit SUSE versions out there ... I had one running on the 3B with no problems ... if you really want 64bit then you might want to look there ...

Haven’t tried yet on the 3B+ but planning to soon ... however, until we see a Pi with more than 4GB onboard then benefits for me are limited ...

I think I may have reached the summit of Enthusiasm Mountain and am now descending towards Suffiency Plateau ... I think the Pi is a fantastic product which I thoroughly enjoy but my days of bleeding edge pain are definitely behind me ... so I’ll leave 64bit to the diehards ...

[jamesh]

More than 4GB? Not happening for years. RAM is too expensive to put that much on and keep anywhere close to the $35 price point. And RAM prices are currently INCREASING....

I find it amazing how much RAM we 'need' nowadays, when we were doing very similar tasks in 32MB devices not that long ago. Just badly written code in my opinion.

[W. H. Heydt]

I find it amazing how much RAM we 'need' nowadays, when we were doing very similar tasks in 32MB devices not that long ago. Just badly written code in my opinion.

I once worked on an IBM mainframe (S/360-30) that had 32KB. It really hurt when a new release caused the OS nucleus to grow from 6KB to 8KB. I spent several weeks recompiling programs to get rid of double-buffering of files so they would still fit and run (no virtual memory in those days...and, as an aside, almost no microcomputers, either).

[royhenderson]

@jamesh - my 4GB onboard is not a wish but just the point at which 64bit would start to offer benefit for me ... however, a 2GB now would be of interest - even at a price premium.

@W.H. H - sounds like you might even remember the joys of SDMOD and DTFSD ...

[W. H. Heydt]

@jamesh - my 4GB onboard is not a wish but just the point at which 64bit would start to offer benefit for me ... however, a 2GB now would be of interest - even at a price premium.

@W.H. H - sounds like you might even remember the joys of SDMOD and DTFSD ...

I can't say that those acronyms ring any bells, but I did do a fair amount of ALC programming on IBM DOS systems, including one memorable program I didn't write, but had to do maintenance on. It was the main post program for a Demand Deposit Accounting system (think checking accounts) that ran to 11,000 lines of assembler. Somewhere around the house I have the listing of an ALC program I wrote for fun...it does a complete set of solutions to the Soma Cube. One night it took a S/360-50 4.5 hours to do the entire run. It might be fun to re-write it for the Pi (in any language) to see how long it would take...

[jahboater]

@jamesh - my 4GB onboard is not a wish but just the point at which 64bit would start to offer benefit for me ... however, a 2GB now would be of interest - even at a price premium.

There is something odd about ARM addressing, or its memory mapped IO, that requires a 64-bit OS when moving to 2GB, not 4GB as you might think. Thats one reason why the Pine64 and the Odroid C2 both have 64-bit official OS's (they use the same Cortex-A53 as the Pi's and 2GB RAM).

I use 32-bit on the Pi's simply because Rasbian is such a good, stable, well supported distro, ... though I'd love to see a 64-bit version.

[royhenderson]

.. they were the macros to generate Sequential Disk support ... my toy was a 360-25 also with 32k ... I imagine a 3B+ would probably blow it away ...

[Heater]

jamesh,

I find it amazing how much RAM we 'need' nowadays, when we were doing very similar tasks in 32MB devices not that long ago. Just badly written code in my opinion.

I also find it amazing and sympathize with your point of view.

I have some ideas as to how to fix the "bloat" problem. Perhaps Raspbian could lead the way:

1) Remove all internationalization from every application. English should be good enough for anyone smart enough to use a computer.

2) Remove Unicode support, which we don't need because of 1) above. And what is wrong with simple ASCII anyway? And besides, it's computationally impossible to support Unicode properly.

3) Remove support for proportional fonts and antialiasing. What is that for? Only fluff.

4) Probably we don't need colour displays either. Green, text only, screens were good enough back in the day.

Needless to say, I don't have much hope of my suggestions getting much traction.

[jdb]

When will Raspberry Pi organization release a 64-bit operating system?! Ideally the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ will work faster if a 64-bit operating system were available in Raspbian. The current 32-bit operating system may present a bottleneck.

In what way is the current ARMv7 Raspbian bottlenecked or limited compared to a theoretical ARMv8 Raspbian?

[Heater]

It is not.

There are some odd things that need a 64 bit address space.

I believe MongoDB is one. If your database is bigger than 2GB.

CockroachDB can get by with 32 bits but needs tweaking to do so.

Of course nobody in their right mind is going to be using a Pi for huge databases. Except for experimentation.

[jdb]

It is not.

There are some odd things that need a 64 bit address space.

I believe MongoDB is one. If your database is bigger than 2GB.

CockroachDB can get by with 32 bits but needs tweaking to do so.

Of course nobody in their right mind is going to be using a Pi for huge databases. Except for experimentation.

Ok, so "database engines that memory map inordinately huge database files" is one valid reason. Any more?

[Heater]

jdb,

Ok, so "database engines that memory map inordinately huge database files" is one valid reason. Any more?

I'm not sure who you are quoting there, certainly not me, but...

Nope, no more, at this time.

However I would suggest that a database bigger than 2GB or 4GB is not "inordinately huge" now a days.

It's common to have 8, 16, 32, 64GB SD cards in a Pi. Makes sense to use a word size that can handle that without any hassel.

But, as you quoted me as saying "nobody in their right mind is going to be using a Pi for huge databases. Except for experimentation"

Anyway, it still niggles me to think of all those transistors in the top 32 bits of all those registers, ALUs, MUXes, and so on going to waste in a 64 bit machine running a 32 bit operating system

[davidcoton]

Anyway, it still niggles me to think of all those transistors in the top 32 bits of all those registers, ALUs, MUXes, and so on going to waste in a 64 bit machine running a 32 bit operating system

Think of it this way:
"Buy 32, get 32 free"
Even if the second 32 are completely superfluous.

[Heater]

OK, let me put this another way...

Some guy or girl, or many of them, have been working very hard, 8 hours per day or more, for some years, to bring us a 64 bit Pi.

After all that effort on their part, we say "Meh" don't need that.

[wildfire]

After all that effort on their part, we say "Meh" don't need that.

ATM we don't need it (actually the Pi architecture right now doesn't) but it is a stepping stone toward the future and those that do feel they need it now do have options.