[GLLUG] Ubuntu 32 or 64?

[Philip J. Robar]

On Jun 2, 2010, at 11:41 PM, STeve Andre' wrote:

> Judging by the problems a lot of software has running on a sparc 64
> instead of i386, I would stick with 32 bit stuff for now.

As someone who worked in Sun's (R.I.P.) OS/Net group during the development of the 64 bit version of Solaris, that there is "lots" of software that has problems running on SPARC (or Intel) 64 bit Solaris is news to me. I ran a great deal of 32/64 bit open source software on 64 bit Solaris SPARC for years and never had a problem.

My Apple Mini runs a 32 bit kernel (because Apple is too lazy/cheap to write the needed 64 bit drivers for it), but it runs a mixture of Apple and independent 32 and 64 bit (and PPC) software transparently to me. I exclusively run 64 bit Linux and Windows 7 and have only run into one problem with a wireless NIC, on 64 bit Windows 7, that I suspect might be 64 bit related.

That being said, Microsoft's Read Me's for 64 Vista/Windows 7 do make it clear that there are 32 bit versions of some software that will not run on the 64 bit versions of their OS's—although it's not clear if any particular issue is due explicitly to 32 vs 64 bit issues or developers not following Microsoft's development guidelines, no matter how vague and varying over the years they may have been.

As best as I can recall, all of the reviews I've read say that in general, with sufficient RAM, 64 bit OS's and programs run a little faster than their 32 bit counterparts. On the other hand Adobe has been slow in rolling out 64 bit versions of their software, not because of compatibility problems, but because they know that it will run slower on much of their customers' installed hardware base due to the relatively smaller cache sizes of CPUs from a few years ago (e.g. Intel Core X and older AMD 64) as compared to today's CPUs.

I'd say go with 64 bits, especially given that your new machine is an i5.

Phil