Advantages of 32bit over 64 bit installation?

[jpenguin]

While kinda on topic; are you looking forward to the X32 ABI?

[67GTA]

Some of the packaging situations still piss me off. Take google earth, skype, and wine to name a few. If you download the 64bit versions, you still have to install billions of 32bit libs because the apps are not really 64bit. They only come in a 64bit container to make them easier to install. Google Earth wants to install about 230 32bit libs alone. Other than that 64bit kicks butt. I wonder if the slowness of 64bit adoption will cause it to be overshadowed by X32 or some other future tech?

[HalationEffect]

I find the idea of the X32 ABI very interesting indeed.

Even apart from the potential performance improvements, if a program that uses X32 has a runaway memory consumption bug, would I be right in thinking that it can't ever gobble up more than 4GB of your RAM?

Although I do wonder if limiting a program to a 32bit address space could have security implications due to ASLR being constrained. Not so much of an issue today, but say 5 or 10 years from now when we all have e.g. 64GB or more of RAM.