Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 14:36:42 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: i386 vs amd64? Message-ID: <200808081236.m78CagPH015579@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <1EE0EC59-C48C-4B07-B08E-77BE388BBDE1@develooper.com>
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Ask Bjørn Hansen <ask@develooper.com> wrote: > We got 4 new SuperMicro boxes[1] with Xeon 3320 processors. They'll > be used as firewalls / very basic routers (our network on one side, > the world via a /29 on the other side). We currently use Soekris and > PC Engine boxes for this (with custom NanoBSD images), so this will be > a bit of an upgrade. :-) > > I was planning to install pfSense on them, but I'm losing faith in > that a bit after figuring out that the pfSense project doesn't seem > all that open[2]; so I'm considering just installing "plain FreeBSD 7" > instead. > > So the question: Would I be happier with 64 or 32bit FreeBSD? Our > Linux application and database servers are all 64 bit, but they also > have 32GB RAM each. The "firewall boxes" are probably vastly overdone > with memory at 4GB each. :-) There are other reasons to prefer amd64 over i386, beside the amount of RAM and address space considerations. For example, in amd64 mode there are twice as many CPU registers available, enabling better optimizations for the C compiler. Furthermore those registers are twice as long, which means that 64bit quantities can be handled with single processor instructions. That doesn't necessarily mean that code will always run faster in amd64 mode. There have been reports of certain edge cases. But in general, amd64 code is faster. Also note that the networkign and packetfilter code uses quite a few 64bit variables (e.g. packet and byte counters). That's probably not significant for a small router, though. Bottom line: Install FreeBSD/amd64, unless you have _specific_ reasons to stay with i386. > A secondary question: Is the preferred way to upgrade a FreeBSD box > still cd /usr/src; make update && make buildworld && ... ? Yes, basically. Please see the section titled "To rebuild everything" in /usr/src/UPDATING, it lists all the steps required for an update. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd "Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure." -- Eric Allman
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