newbie question 64 bit or not

[trainman]

Hi everybody
Well here i am about to jump in the deep end as regards to linux and what i need to know is shall i install the 64 bit or the 32 (i guess that is what the other one is ) as i do have 64 processor and what differance will i see , I am going to duel boot for a bit untill i get the hang of it and just to let know i tried the live cd and liked what i saw.
many thanks inadvance
phil

[askrieger]

Re: newbie question 64 bit or not

The primary advantage of using software that has been compiled for 64 bit is that it is faster. For normal use: (writing text, web surfing, one page spreadsheets, listening to music) about 10% faster than using properly compiled 32 bit code. For CPU intensive tasks: (gaming, compiling software, serious image transformation) 20%. The primary advantage of using 32 bit code on a 64 bit processor is the availability of closed source proprietary software (like the win32 codecs and flash). So it really depends on what you plan to do. If you like to listen to wma or aac encoded music, or watch dvds on your computer, you probably want to go with the 32 bit version. If you're analyzing CT images or doing natural language processing, or just hate to wait while you're compiliing and testing software, go with 64 bit.

That said, I'm using the AMD-64 K8 version of Kubuntu even though I spend 90% of my computer time doing thngs that don't use the power of my processor.

[OuchOfDeath]

Re: newbie question 64 bit or not

But 64-bit still has some some problems that need to be worked out, for instance installing Wine on 64-bit kubuntu is very difficult and troublesome. There's also much less programs available for 64-bit in the repositories. I'd say start with 32-bit, and later when you're more used to linux you can go 64-bit.

[trainman]

Re: newbie question 64 bit or not

Thanks guys for your help, i have now got installed kubuntu 32 bit and i think i might be back for some more advice later
cheers
phil

[GreatBunzinni]

Re: newbie question 64 bit or not

Thanks guys for your help, i have now got installed kubuntu 32 bit and i think i might be back for some more advice later
cheers
phil

AS it is said, in this case you can have your cake and eat it too. Thankfully Kubuntu 6.06 has a liveCD form so you can check out the 64bit liveCD and see for yourself how your machine holds up with a 64bit distribution. Easy as that.

Regarding hardware support, I also have a 64bit machine and as far as I could see the 64bit version of kubuntu was as stable as the 32bit. The only thing which forced me to install the 32bit version was the bloody WiFi card. That PoS doesn't offer linux support and so I have to use ndiswrapper to be able to use it. To make matters worse Acer offers terrible support for it's hardware and the only 64bit drivers they offer are incompatible with ndiswrapper. So in the end if I wanted to use the 64bit Kubuntu I had to say goodbye to WiFi, which isn't an option.

So, regarding your case, I believe that if your machine doesn't have hardware which isn't supported under linux then you will not have any problem with it. Give it a try. Pop the liveCD into your CD-ROM drive and take it out for a spin.