From: "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <bss03@volumehost.net>
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Semi OT: 64 bit processors, the Linux Kernel, and x86 Gentoo.
Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 06:08:02 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <200705250608.07606.bss03@volumehost.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <AA0639A1EB70AE409130258CE7BDC31806646B18@messenger.cv63.navy.mil>
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On Friday 25 May 2007 04:53:26 burlingk@cv63.navy.mil wrote:
> What makes the difference between a 64 bit kernel, and a 32 bit kernel?
Use of 64-bit machine code [*], particularly instructions that make use of
64-bit native[**] registers[***].
* Defining this is more difficult, since that does not mean instruction
requiring 64-bits to represent as many architectures have variable length
instructions.
** Native is a difficult term to define, but I'm explicitly excluding the
floating-point registers that have been 64-bit or 80-bit from my vague notion
of native
*** I guess this makes the Cell processor 128-bit? BTW, if the
term "register" doesn't mean anything to you it's the fastest memory in your
computer, closer to the ALU (etc.) than L1 cache, very small and expensive
that are addressed differently than all other memory.
--
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =.
bss03@volumehost.net ((_/)o o(\_))
ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
http://iguanasuicide.org/ \_/
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-05-25 11:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-05-25 9:53 [gentoo-user] Semi OT: 64 bit processors, the Linux Kernel, and x86 Gentoo burlingk
2007-05-25 11:08 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. [this message]
2007-05-25 12:31 ` Denis
2007-05-25 13:06 ` Florian Philipp
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2007-05-25 14:12 burlingk
2007-05-25 19:54 ` Peter Alfredsen
2007-05-25 12:44 burlingk
2007-05-25 13:54 ` Peter Alfredsen
2007-05-25 9:09 burlingk
2007-05-25 9:28 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
2007-05-25 7:12 burlingk
2007-05-25 8:07 ` Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.
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