[mythtv-users] Upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit and maybe a distro switch?

[mythtv at blandford.net]

On 06/17/2009 10:27 AM, Johnny wrote:
>> Just an FYI, 3GB of RAM isn't a limitation of a 32bit OS, I'm running
>> Mandriva 2008.1 32bit with 8GB.
>> Doug
>
> Just FYI, 4 GB of RAM *is* a limitation of a 32bit OS. With a 32 word
> size you can only address 2^32 = 4 billion memory addresses. That is
> further limited by some of the address space being reserved for
> hardware addressing, etc. So you can put 8 GB in a 32 bit machine but
> you won't be able to use it.


Here is a document describing how the OS can address more than 4GB on a 
32 bit box.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

Michael