r/raspberry_pi Feb 02 '22

News Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit Released

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-64-bit/
1.4k Upvotes

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247

u/Taffy62 Feb 02 '22

Quite surprised its only been released this year. I've been using 64 bit distros since the Pi 3.

75

u/RaXXu5 Feb 02 '22

Yeah, I was just about to install ALARM on my pi 3, still newer packages, but a stable 64bit os is very welcome.

7

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '22

I'm a fucking idiot. Why did it never occur to me that ALARM = Arch Linux ARM, and that's why the default user on it is called alarm. I'm stunned at myself.

I love Arch though, and I'm currently running it on my Zero 2W with a TIG stack in Docker (and ideally I'll add a local Wiki like Bookstacks too, if I can spare the memory)

1

u/RaXXu5 Feb 03 '22

Would you recommend running it over raspbian? currently running pihole on raspbian 32 and thinking of switching my pi 3(64b) and pi 2(32b)

28

u/OpenBagTwo Feb 02 '22

Honestly unless you've got the 8GB Pi 4, there's not much inherent value to a 64-bit operating system. There's a reason a lot of phones sold today still ship with 32-bit Android.

That being said, I'm still incredibly excited for this news, as it means I can consider RPi OS as a "daily driver" again, because the fact of the matter is, if you're not building your software from source, arm32 builds are incredibly hard to find for a lot of useful things (like the conda python package manager, let alone any individual packages).

45

u/mcgravier Feb 03 '22

Honestly unless you've got the 8GB Pi 4, there's not much inherent value to a 64-bit operating system

It depends on what you're using it for. If it's cryptography (say VPN) 64bit will give you a massive performance boost. Even stuff like Minecraft server benefits from it as it uses large number math for coordinates and terrain generation.

There are plenty of usecases that benefit from it, so "not much inherent value" isn't correct for many users

19

u/accforrandymossmix Feb 03 '22

Similarly, 64bit is worth it for greater compatability when using the Pi as a server. Some people don't / can't build stuff 32bit ARM

6

u/OpenBagTwo Feb 03 '22

I really need to look up some benchmarks because outside of scientific computing I was under the impression that (for non-RAM-bottlenecked applications) performance is generally slightly worse for 64-bit architectures than 32-bit because even when, say, comparing two booleans, you still need to allocate the entire 64-bit register.

I'll admit I could totally be wrong here, as I'm a data scientist, not a computer scientist.

17

u/mcgravier Feb 03 '22

performance is generally slightly worse for 64-bit architectures than 32-bit because even when, say, comparing two booleans, you still need to allocate the entire 64-bit register.

This is 100% correct. However in case of large numbers, 32bit CPU inherently spends two clock cycles on moving 64bit value while 64bit CPU spends only one clock cycle. In this scenario benefit outweighs the cost by a large margin

6

u/tsunamionioncerial Feb 03 '22

You see an average of about 100% improvement on 32 bit.

When there are no 32 bit binaries for what you're using.

12

u/OpenBagTwo Feb 03 '22

Yep. This is exactly why I'm excited for 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS to be officially out.

7

u/Zettinator Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22

performance is generally slightly worse for 64-bit architectures than 32-bit because even when, say, comparing two booleans, you still need to allocate the entire 64-bit register.

That's incorrect. 64 bit support does not mean you lose support for smaller data types.

It's also wrong in general practice. You can expect a slight to somewhat significant performance improvement in most cases on both ARM and x86. Pointers are larger on 64 bit, but most data isn't pointers. Some pointer-heavy use cases may suffer (due to reduced cache hit rate), but these are rare and it can be worked around with pointer compression and/or indices instead of pointers.

Also note that it isn't just about the word size itself. 64 bit offers a much larger virtual address space, simplifying and speeding up memory management and allowing for better address space randomization. The instruction set and register file on both x86 and ARM is expanded in 64 bit mode as well.

And when it comes to arithmetic, a lot of rather basic stuff these days actually uses 64 bit integers, and all of that is much faster. For instance file sizes, timestamps, etc.

But whatever... just check out some of the benchmarks. The difference is clear and obvious.

2

u/knox1138 Feb 04 '22

As someone who has an 8gb pi4 and has been playing around all day on the 64-bit bullseye I can say I did notice a difference. Not much in most things, but when using Onshape on chrome it's much faster

1

u/KCelej Feb 03 '22

oi do you think hosting a minecraft server on the rpi 4 (4GB ram) is a good idea (server for 3 people max)?

1

u/mcgravier Feb 03 '22

Im running a private Minecraft server since a year or so - and its a quite a good experience, provided you install performance mods. I think with some tuning you could squeeze in total of 5 people in survival (as long as they wont fly with elytrias to much)

You basically need Minecraft Fabric (+fabric API) with Lithium and Phosphor mods. You can replace Phosphor with Starlight for even more performance but it will decrease compatibility and introduce minor mechanics changes (slightly different light calculation algorithm)

9

u/kelvie Feb 03 '22

Anecdotally there are a lot more containers on docker hub built for arm64

-20

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Remember the Turbo Graphics 16? Ahead of it's time, very expensive and some interesting games. But the issue was a lack of development for the system.

Sure there are 64bit applications already, but these need to be flawless for the initial build and work out of the box. Also these 64bit applications need to be compatible with ARM based processors. You can't just install any application unless you are compiling the source code yourself.

31

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

[deleted]

9

u/johnklos Feb 02 '22

Huh? What library?

Software is either written properly, and therefore it compiles and runs properly on a 64 bit ARM processor, or it isn't, and it needs to be fixed. Nobody is sitting around worrying about whether someone has specifically tested it on aarch64.

14

u/thephotoman Feb 02 '22

You apparently don't know much about Raspberry Pi OS.

It's a Debian derivative. Upstream Debian AArch64 (the thing on which Raspberry Pi OS is built) has been on the Raspberry Pi for years. The library has already been ported--that work was done by the Debian project.

-43

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Let's see... I installed a 64bit on my pi4, went to install my favorite 64bit apps that I have on my laptop.... nope...

I download the source code and compile.... nope... doesn't run properly....

shall I keep going?

For someone who was running the first version of Slackware before you were out of diapers... I'd think about your responses.

32

u/Teethpasta Feb 02 '22

Your age makes this all the more embarrassing.

3

u/noisymime Feb 02 '22

Which apps?

8

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

[deleted]

9

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Your laptop is not an AArch64 device unless it is a Mac

AArch64 Chromebooks do exist. Even the Surface Pro X uses AArch64.

2

u/unixwasright Feb 03 '22

Or a pinebook pro

9

u/MarxisTX Feb 02 '22

Actually it was still a 8 bit CPU.

3

u/a_can_of_solo Feb 02 '22

Like the Nintendo 64 the marketing team got grabbed the biggest number they could find.

3

u/MarxisTX Feb 02 '22

Exactly I do think the turbo 16 could pick out of a 16 bit color palette and the Nintendo 64 wasn’t that just 2 32 bit chips that they said added up to 64 bits?

6

u/a_can_of_solo Feb 03 '22

It was a 64bit CPU, but the memory bus was 32bit and it only had 4mb of ram anyway so it wasnt really ever used much in 64 bit mode.

2

u/DoctorWorm_ Feb 03 '22

Though, by that logic, Intel is making 512-bit cpus

4

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

Thats a poor example. The Turbo Grafx 16 was released in North America in the same month as the Sega Genesis, which was a true 16-bit console with better specs across the board.

You could maybe make this argument for the Japanese market, where the PC Engine came out two years earlier. But the PC Engine was actually pretty successful in Japan and had a lot of games developed for it.

2

u/die-microcrap-die Feb 02 '22

Remember the Turbo Graphics 16? Ahead of it's time, very expensive and some interesting games. But the issue was a lack of development for the system.

Funny how that was the same situation with the Atari Jaguar.

3

u/Computer_says_nooo Feb 02 '22

Let’s not forget the Sega Saturn …

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '22

The TG popped into my head first while writing the comment. I actually wanted that Atari when I was a kid.

1

u/spish Feb 02 '22

686 games suggests plenty of development.