On 31 July 2010 13:32, David <lists2...@trancepod.netmx.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I suspect that this is a bit of an FAQ (albeit one with constantly-changing
> answers..), apologies if so. I have done some web searching on 64-bit issues,
> but there's a lot of (also constantly-changing) information to read through..
>
> I've just bought a new 64-bit PC (my first), and am wondering whether or
> not I should install the 64-bit version of Ubuntu (10.04) or just stick
> with the 32-bit version?
I went 64-bit when I installed on my new-to-me hand-me-down Athlon64
X2 PC last year, with 9.10. I thought, hey, Linux today is no
challenge, not like in the old days, perhaps this will put a bit of
the fun back.
Well, I was disappointed. :¬) It was a walk in the park. Everything
has worked, no significant snags or hitches at all at any point.
There were glitches with one thing which I'll come to in a moment.
(But for the challenge I am considering going to FreeBSD or
OpenSolaris or something instead. 64-bit Linux Ubuntu is just too
damned easy.)
> I probably don't really have any _need_ ("only" 3 GB RAM) for 64-bit Linux
> (presumably 32-bit Linux will work on x86_64 CPUs (Athlon II X2 dual-core,
> fwiw) near enough as efficiently as 64-bit Linux would?), but as we'll all
> have to get there sooner or later, I'm wondering if I should make the
> leap now?
Definitely, do it.
> I don't have any particularly high-performance requirements (I plan to
> run BOINC (which may be an issue as I think most/all BOINC projects are
> 32-bit), but BOINC will get whatever resources I feel comfortable
> throwing at it, rather than being the main use of the system: the main
> issue will be "can I get the BOINC projects to work" rather than "can I
> squeeze every last drop of CPU power for them"),
I run s...@home, einst...@home and ClimatePrediction.net on my box;
all work flawlessly.
> but I will be doing a lot
> of the usual desktop things which might be problematic in a 64-bit
> environment:
>
> Nvidia drivers
Seamless. No issues at all.
> Firefox (plus a variety of add-ons, any potential issues there?)
None. Addins are written in XUL and are cross-platform; the same
binaries run on PowerPC, x86, x86-32 etc.
> Flash (in Firefox, particularly BBC iPlayer, 4OD, etc, which are
> must-haves! Adobe's withdrawal of Flash-64 sounds like a warning..)
I had niggles with Flash at first. A few videos did not play just by
clicking on them; I had to use keyboard navigation - the Tab key and
Space to click - to start them playing. However, that's gone away now.
> Java plug-in in Firefox
Flawless.
> Thunderbird (again, any potential issues with extensions?)
Flawless. Same comments as re Firefox: Mozilla plugins are natively
cross-platform.
> OpenOffice, GnuCash, Gimp
OOo is fine; I even removed 3.1 from Ubuntu 9.10 and loaded 3.2 from
.DEBs from the OOo site. No issues.
Never tried GnuCash and only rarely use GIMP for resizing or cropping.
Both are fine.
> a local LAMP (P=PHP) set-up, although to be honest I tend to do very
> little web dev at home these days, mainly at work instead.
Never use it. I anticipate no issues.
> If I need to install 32-bit apps in a 64-bit OS, is this a painful
> process? Any particularly convoluted set-up or reliability issues that I
> need to be aware of?
In the very rare cases where no 64-bit build is available, scripts
install the 32-bit build automagically for me. (E.g. UbuntuZilla
installed 32-bit Seamonkey as Ubuntu's build is out-of-date. I later
swapped out Ubutu's Thunderbird 3 for 3.1.1 from Mozilla using the
same Ubuntuzilla tool. Again, flawless.)
> As I said, I don't think I have any real need for 64-bit, so if trying
> to set up a 64-bit system to meet all my requirements would be a *real*
> pain, then I'd probably be best not bothering, but if only a relatively
> small amount of pain is involved (I'm fairly experienced with Linux and
> have little fear of the command line), then maybe it might be worth a
> go.
You'll never notice the difference. It's quick, though, and I like the
"feeling" of knowing that I'm running a native 64-bit OS.
> If I could also ask a couple of related questions:
>
> What's the general view on the size of the swap partition these days? Is
> 2x RAM still the best policy?
Up to 1GB RAM, yes. For >1GB RAM, for ordinary use, a 2GB swap
partition is plenty. It's all I have and I never use more than a
hundred meg or so. (4GB RAM, typical workload Firefox + Chrome +
Pidgin + Skype + OpenOffice + Nautilus + Gedit + a few terminals +
BOINC + Transmission.)
> ext3 v ext4? I've heard various grumbles about ext4 being slower (I
> think it was something to do with rewriting files during software
> updates in particular? - I've forgotten the exact details), and it also
> still seems a bit 'new' ..or am I just worrying too much?
I avoid ext4 for now, myself, but I only have "tiny" twin 120GB EIDE
disks. (Most of my data lives on a server, ironically running Windows
2008 Server.) If you have terabyte drives, it might be worth it.
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