4 GB RAM limit

[moonwalkers]

What we really need, is what the x86/x64 side calls multi-library. The ability to run either 32 or 64 bit binaries. Any package loaded, that supplies libraries, would have both. Each non-library package could determine what would be best based on need. Like LibreOffice & Gimp would probably work better as 64 bit binaries. On the other hand, terminal emulators and Vim would probably work just fine as 32 bit binaries.

Code:

$ uname -a
Linux gortys 5.7.4-0.40-1-pinebookpro-hwaccel #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 10 23:40:23 PDT 2020 aarch64 GNU/Linux
$ dpkg --print-architecture
arm64
$ dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
amd64
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
$ dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
amd64
armhf
$ sudo aptitude update > /dev/null
$ sudo aptitude -y install htop:amd64 > /dev/null
$ file "$(which htop)"
/usr/bin/htop: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=e92103090217a907929e5dda72ca3e7a109c3213, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, stripped
$ htop -v
htop 3.0.0 - (C) 2004-2018 Hisham Muhammad
Released under the GNU GPL.
$ sudo aptitude -y install htop:armhf > /dev/null
$ file "$(which htop)"
/usr/bin/htop: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, BuildID[sha1]=fa25de2b58e59f77b758063e843834aa96036e8e, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, stripped
$ htop -v
htop 3.0.0 - (C) 2004-2018 Hisham Muhammad
Released under the GNU GPL.
$ sudo aptitude -y install htop > /dev/null
$ file "$(which htop)"
/usr/bin/htop: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=c3f2abfbe13275161fde11ab92939e49bc86ad39, for GNU/Linux 3.7.0, stripped
moonwalker@gortys:~$ htop -v
htop 3.0.0 - (C) 2004-2018 Hisham Muhammad
Released under the GNU GPL.

Now, there are three caveats:

1. some packages cannot be installed simultaneously in more than one architecture, e.g. only one of htop:amd64, htop:armhf, or htop:arm64 can be installed at a time, installing the other will uninstall the previous.
   
2. some architectures may be incompatible, e.g. only one of i386 or armhf can be enabled. This has to do with some limitations of how libraries in those two architectures are organized.
   
3. non-native for the hardware architectures will require something like qemu-user or qemu-user-static to integrate seamlessly. That is, i386 on amd64 hardware and armhf on arm64 hardware will work as-is, but something like QEMU is needed for running i386/amd64 on any ARM, armhf/arm64 on any x86/x86_64, and any 64-bit binaries on any 32-bit hardware.
   

Obviously, that's all on Debian. How Manjaro works with multiarch, if at all - that I don't know. But if whatever is your distro of choice supports multiarch - using select few 64-bit arm64 apps mixed in the same system with select few 32-bit armhf apps should not be a problem whatsoever, and that includes apps like browsers, LibreOffice, etc. That said, while I can use armhf version of Firefox on my PBP, since I don't watch either Netflix or Prime Video I prefer the simplicity of running (near) pure arm64 system.

[zer0sig]

Did I have a post deleted for some reason? I put a reply in this thread. It showed on the forum. It was a response about 32 vs 64 bit, and I don't think I posted anything that would earn a deletion. If I did, I'd like to see what I said and to have a chace to apologize.

Is it possible that a post seemed to be sumitted but didn't? Seems an odd way for what looks like mature BB/forum code to behave.

Maybe I hit preview by accient? Doh!

[zer0sig]

I think I broke the quoting, heh.
This is not a case of one better than another. Rpi has been putting out 32-bit OSes with lots of attention and support for, what, 8 years? And the 64-bit OS (which RPi doesn't recommend using) has been out for all of 3 months. The pretty-rare-on-ARM-SBC 4+GB per process usage clearly isn't in the picture, and the likelihood of rewriting subroutines to optimize for 64-bit chips in this timeframe seems pretty low.

Look into other chips as they move to a double bit size. The results are mixed, depending on the architecture improvements and on how well code is optimised for larger word size/registers.
I will have to see if I can compare 32 bit and 64 bit OSes on one of my PINE devices, but since PINE has been 64-bit mostly from the start, I wouldn't be surprised if the 32 bit OSes were slower due to less optimization.

Edited to note that 64 bit OSes have existed for RPi devices for longer than this, but there seems to be a lot more attention paid now that there is an 8GB RPi4 out - I guess the 64 bit OS might be a "Standard" build now. I think what I said still holds, but not quite as much. that much time primarily dedicated to 32 bit OSes surely has led to some extra optimization.

[chithanh]

too would have paid more for 8GB, 12GB or 16GBs of memory. But, in the open source ARM 64 world, there are just not that many options. I found that the Kirin970 SoC does support at least 6GB of memory. However, finding details if that SoC supports more memory than 6GBs are not easy to find.

I think AMLogic also sells SoCs that support at least 6 GB. There are Android TV Boxes since late 2019 that come with 6 GB RAM, such as Artizlee X96 Max.

[wannaphong]

I needs 8GB. It's not enough ram.

[Arwen]

I needs 8GB. It's not enough ram.

Then the Pinebook Pro is not, (yet?), suitable for you. And won't likely be for at least 1 year, probably 2 years.

It's possible in a year or 2, a new SoC can be used for a new Pine64 laptop, (Pinebook Pro II?), that would support more memory. But, there is nothing that can be done today.

Another vendor might have what you are looking for, (I hear people are working on getting Linux running on Apple M1 laptops).

[jiyong]

People are working on custom Pi 4 laptops and that way you can also get 8 GB RAM.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/raspberry-pi-laptop/

[DrYak]

It's possible in a year or 2, a new SoC can be used for a new Pine64 laptop, (Pinebook Pro II?), that would support more memory.

Indeed, and the recently announced Quartz is a (very) first step in that direction. Though that one, the RK3566 is more middle-line SoC and is probably going to end up in potential successors of the PinePhone and/or PineTab (as hinted in the blog post).
Probably some high range SoC (RK3588 ? Or whatever ends up in the RockPro64 successor) is eventually going to make its way into the PBP successor, eventually.