I am going to move to a 64 bit machine and a 64 bit OS (Windows) and am trying to figure out if any of the extensions/packages I am using are going to be lost when I make the move. I can't seem to find whether someone has built a list of known issues as flagged on the Python 2.5 release page. I have been using 2.5 but will at this time move to 2.6. I see that the potential conflicts will arise because of the module relying on a C extension module that would not be compatible in a 64 bit environment. But I don't know how to anticipate them. I want to move to a 64 bit system to because my IT guys told me that is the only way to make a meaningful move up the memory ladder.
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219answers:
4
+3
A:
Perhaps you should figure out what "make a meaningful move up the memory ladder" means. Do you currently need to address more than 4GB of RAM? If not then you don't need a 64-bit system.
Andrew Hare
2009-05-27 17:09:48
Actually it's 3GB of RAM on windows.
Triptych
2009-05-27 17:23:53
It depends on which version - my Windows Server 2003 SP1 box is currently addressing 3.92GB of RAM.
Andrew Hare
2009-05-27 17:27:53
Completely agree with this. I sincerely doubt you need more than 4GB of RAM for a Python program. You'd know if you needed that much.
musicfreak
2009-05-27 17:29:31
@Triptych - it varies from system to system. Usually it's closer to 3.5 GB. I'm told it has to do with the hardware on the system and how much address space each particular piece of hardware needs.
Jason Baker
2009-05-27 17:42:45
+4
A:
We're running 2.5 on a 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux server.
Everything appears to be working.
I would suggest you do what we did.
Get a VM.
Load up the app.
Test it.
It was easier than trying to do research.
S.Lott
2009-05-27 17:15:06
+1
A:
It really depends on the specific modules you are using. I am running several 64-bit Linux systems and I have yet to come across problems with any of the C modules that I use.
Most C modules can be built from source, so you should read about the Python distribution utility distutils to see how you can build these modules if you cannot find 64-bit binaries.
Whether a specific module will work in a 64-bit environment depends on how the code was written. Many modules work correctly when compiled for 64-bits, however there is a chance that it won't. Many popular modules such those from SciPy work just fine.
In short you will either need to just try the module on a 64-bit system or you will have to find the developer/project page and determine if there is a 64-bit build or if there are known bugs.
Doug
2009-05-27 17:23:28
+1
A:
It seems like you already know this, but it's worth pointing out for the sake of completeness. With that said, remember that you shouldn't have any problems with pure Python packages.
Secondly, you also don't necessarily have to install the 64-bit version of Python unless you're planning on running a program that will take up greater than 4 GB of memory. The 32-bit version of Python should work perfectly fine on 64-bit windows.
Jason Baker
2009-05-27 17:39:22