How well supported are 64bit versions of Linux?


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I am dualbooting, I will stick with the 32bit version of Vista because I heard support for it in 64bit is still terrible with many hardware devices not having 64bit drivers.

However, I have no idea how well the support for Linux is when it comes to 64bit compared to 32. I am not sure if I should get the 32 or 64bit version of Ubuntu, its a laptop with a dual-core 64bit AMD CPU.

Which version of Ubuntu would you recommend?

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I suggest that you use 64-bit Ubuntu. It will be more future ready. Any programs that you have to manually install will take a little bit of work, but eventually it will all pay off.

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One thing that comes to mind is that Flash is released as 32-bit only. I think you can run the 32-bit firefox and be ok, but I don't yet have any 64-bit system in my house to test and verify.

Other than that, pretty much everything that is open source is well-ported and supported in 64bit. It is really just the closed-source stuff that will cause you problems, from what I hear.

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This may sound weird, but:

The only version of Ubuntu that I could get to successfully boot from the LiveCD and install onto my hard drive is the AMD64 Alpha 3 build of Hardy Heron (8.04). Before I upgraded to a 8800 GT, on my 7800 GT Ubuntu used to show a corrupted splash screen for 7.04 and it locked up after the login sound in 7.10. Then for my 8800 GT, Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 x86 complains about missing video card drivers and locks up after 'Running local boot scripts.'

This is the case for my desktop. My laptop supports 32-bit Ubuntu 7.10 just fine (except it can't suspend to RAM properly :/).

So there's one case of hardware being supported by the 64-bit build as opposed to 32-bit.

I think you can run the 32-bit firefox and be ok, but I don't yet have any 64-bit system in my house to test and verify.

The flashplugin-nonfree package installed successfully IIRC. (Same goes for all those 'restricted' extras that enable playback of "evil" formats. :p) Haven't tested Flash-enabled sites yet... will do that in a sec. But, as an example, the HD trailers I got off Apple's movie trailers site played back just fine.

EDIT: The anti-Linux Flash ads from MS that I'm seeing on Neowin's front page is proof Flash works in 64-bit Ubuntu. :p

Edited by rm20010
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If you don't need anything that requires a 64-bit machine, you're good to go with 32bit linux. Even on 64bit linux, I never had much problem running 32bit apps. In terms of future, I dont think there will be any apps coming out soon (before you upgrade your linux distro that is) that is mighty powerful running on a 64bit machine. btw ... what were the advantages of a 64bit os? larger memory support... can't remember the rest.

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I use 64 bits distros since Ubuntu 6.04 or 6.10. Problems? Only one or two: flash and WINE. Flash problem is very simple to solve: nspluginwrapper. There are lots of tuts all over the internet. WINE gave me some trouble with ArchLinux; i recently solved it using an alternative pkgbuild that uses OpenSUSE rpms.

I can't remember if there was any speed improvment, but.. I'm secure enough to say: use 64bits.

In a side note: flashplugin-nonfree in Debian/Ubuntu 64bits is nothing more than an automated process for the nspluginwrapper solution ;)

And oh, i tottaly forgot. The only apps that will give you touble in 64 bits version are Closed Source and i think Jabbin (last time i check). All the others are eeeeeeasy

Edited by esquiso
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One thing that comes to mind is that Flash is released as 32-bit only. I think you can run the 32-bit firefox and be ok, but I don't yet have any 64-bit system in my house to test and verify.

Other than that, pretty much everything that is open source is well-ported and supported in 64bit. It is really just the closed-source stuff that will cause you problems, from what I hear.

I think I remember when I installed Flash on my Linux box, and somewhere there were 64-bit instructions. I could be wrong, it could have been Java.

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The three major set backs for 64bit linux are flashplayer, java browser plugin, and the win32codecs. All three can be gotten around by using 32bit versions of the applications that use them (ie firefox and mplayer). You can also get around the flashplayer problem by using the nspluginwrapper that will allow you to run the 32bit flashplayer plugin on 64bit firefox.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I use 64bit Linux. There's no speed improvements for everyday tasks (firefox 'aint going to run any faster regardless of the number of bits ;) ), but for multimedia work there's defintitely some improvement. My system handles better under strain with multimedia apps. Also bear in mind, that most distros use SSE optimisation as standard for their 64bit ports, which again speeds up multimedia and CPU intensive tasks. Just make sure you have plenty of RAM (at least 1GB).

As for flash, there's two possible ways to go.

The first way is to use 64bit firefox and nspluginwrapper, which enables the usage of 32bit plugins like Flash in a 64bit browser. However my experience is that newer versions of Flash don't play well with nspuginwrapper, and it just ends up eating RAM until it segfaults unceremonesly.

The other alternative that I use is to simply install a 32bit version of Firefox on your 64bit distro. You need a proper multilib distro for this (like Fedora, (U/Ku/Xu/Flux)buntu(Studio/Christian Edition/Muslim Edition) or Debian) and that will enable you tuse use 32bit firefox. It's no slower than the 64bit version, but Flash and other plugins like Real Player (if that's your cup of tea) work perfectly. Plus you still get the benefits of 64bit stuff with other more intensive apps.

Definitely try out 64bit Linux and see how it goes. For me it certainly helps. When I'm using a realtime kernel for audio work, the system is more responsive and I get fewer Xruns and dropouts. And as apps are optimised for 64bit usage, the benefits wlll become more apparent.

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