are there differences in speed between 32 bit and 64 bit Puppy's?
 

As a project (to fill time in this coronavirus season) I decided to upgrade an elderly Acer Aspire laptop I had been given: I doubled the RAM, to 2 Gb, and replaced the original HDD with a small SSD I had sitting around, and then reinstalled Puppy 8.

I meant to install the 64 bit version that I had used before, but picked up the wrong flash-drive, and installed the 32bit. It seems to run fine.

This prompted me to wonder, if the RAM is the same (3 Gb or less) will a 64 bit version necessarily run faster than a 32 bit? (I imagine that the same question could be asked of any operating system, but given that Puppy is such a light-weight system, I thought differences might be clearer).

Are the majority of Puppy users using 64 bit by now?

A 64-bit system will be faster than a 32-bit system, but, unless very CPU-intensive applications (recording software, video editors, etc.) are being used, the difference may not visible to user.

This article should help: https://www.pcmag.com/news/32-bit-vs...the-difference

As regards your question, I can't speak to that, as I don't use Puppy, but 32-bit hardware is becoming rarer and rarer, so my guess would be that most users of most operating systems are currently using 64-bit operating systems.

To answer your puppy question -- with only two gigs RAM, 32bit will exhibit a 'snappier' response versus 64bit. Granted, it's not much but it is noticeable. I didnt go 64bit until I maxed out RAM in an old Dell to 4GB. SSD is the single most significant change to make to old laptops.

The PAE version is most likely the one to use, of whatever 32bit puppy you choose to use.

Majority does not use old laptops like we do. Ignore them.

Have fun!

@ Brant:-

I'll second TorC.

My two boxes are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The 'oldie' is a nearly 19-yr old Dell Inspiron laptop - an original 1100, from 2002. Originally with a NetBurst 'Celery', 128 MB DDR1 RAM, a 20 GB Hitachi HDD, and onboard Intel graphics. It came with XP installed; how it managed to run, I will never know.

Fast forward to the present, it now runs a 2.6 GHz Pentium 4, 2 GB (still DDR1) RAM, and a 128 GB PATA/IDE SSD from Transcend. She runs a pair of 32-bit Puppies; Slacko 560, and DPup 'Stretch' 7.5. P4s will never be fast, but they're serviceable, and seem to keep chugging away forever.

--------------------------------------

The new one - bought a year ago - is a modern HP Pavilion tower. Pentium 'Gold' G5400 @ 3.7 GHz, 32GB DDR4, 5 TB of assorted HDDs/SSDs, Asus Geforce GPU. Came with Windows, but the very first action was to load up a Live Puppy CD, and to delete Win 10 with extreme prejudice.....before it had the chance to dig its smelly hooks into my nice new hardware.

I could literally run anything I wanted to on here, but I underwent my own spell of distro-hopping through the mainstream distros several years ago, eventually coming to the conclusion that I wouldn't give any of them house-room. I stick with Puppy; having used it for nearly 7 years, I could almost navigate round it blindfolded, I know it that well.

This machine runs a "kennels" of assorted 32-bit & 64-bit Puppies; 3 of one, 4 of t'other respectively. The 64-bit Pups are smooth, and fast. The 32-bit Pups are just as smooth.....and in my personal opinion, actually have the edge over the 64-bitzers for overall 'snappiness'. I don't care if everybody else looks down their nose at 32-bit distros in general, and Puppies in particular; I'm the one that uses my machine, not them.....and Puppy can do everything the 'big boys' can.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you want to run Puppy, you go for it. It's your machine, so you run what YOU want on there, not what somebody else thinks you should run. It's a big old world out there, and there's hundreds of Linux distros to choose from; it would be pretty amazing if most folks couldn't find something they can live with.

Remember; at the end of the day, Puppy is ALL about having fun! The minute you start trying to take it seriously, you lose the "joie de vivre" and spontaneity that Puppy engenders. You ruin Puppy when you start doing that....


Mike. :hattip: