Is it worth going 64bit

[Matthew S.]

Is it worth going 64bit on Linux? I'm asking cause I'm curious since I just got myself a new system.

My distro of choice is Ubuntu by the way.

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

I did when I got a new system. Everything worked fine. All the software I use for 32 bit was there for 64 bit. I'd say, give it a go. It's supposed to be better and faster for certain things. :D

[Barney T. Administrators]

I use 64 bit Debian. Works like a charm! I've never had any issues other than flashplayer.... I use the 32-bit add-on with Firefox and it works fine.

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

Using 64 bit OpenSuse here and everything runs great :) Everything is quick and I have had no problems yet.

I need some more RAM though, I have a virtual Server 2003 and Virtual XP running at the same time, with only 4GB of RAM. It still seems to be working ok but I think I should get some more :p

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

If your hardware supports it, go for it.

Does Flash work properly on 64-bit Linux now? Last time I used it (A while back, actually) nothing worked. I'd be really surprised if support has not been added yet.

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

If your hardware supports it, go for it.

Does Flash work properly on 64-bit Linux now? Last time I used it (A while back, actually) nothing worked. I'd be really surprised if support has not been added yet.

You can download the 64 bit Flash for linux yes.

It works in Ubuntu, just download and install :)

It works in OpenSuse. I installed flash from the repos and then installed Firefox and Opera and both worked without any additional 'tweaks' :)

[PGHammer]

Is it worth going 64bit on Linux? I'm asking cause I'm curious since I just got myself a new system.

My distro of choice is Ubuntu by the way.

As someone that did, I would say heck yes unless you have issues with driver support for your hardware in 64-bit. (Drivers, are, in fact, the only reason I would recommend that someone with proper CPU support NOT install a 64-bit operating system, regardless of how little RAM they have.)

The biggest reason why I personally switched, and why I recommend that others do so, is stability (not future-proofing, or even access to large amounts of RAM).

It's not unique to 'buntu (especially since I installed Jaunty inside of Windows 7 64-bit), but actually pretty darn generic (all the more so since I switched 2 GB of RAM and six months ago).

While others have cited future-proofing and access to large amounts of RAM, what's wrong with extra stability compared to 32-bit? With all else (including RAM) being equal, comparing 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the same operating system, when it gets down to stability, 64-bit wins.

[Kalint]

64 Bit is going to be the future standard so I believe it's best to just prepare for it now. There's no point in waiting for more x64 bit support to come along and you find yourself having to reinstall your OS and apps just to become part of the new majority.

So go for it.

[Elv13]

64 Linux linux is less stable than 32bit. It is less tester, making it less stable. Just take firefox for example, it is easier to crash it in 64bit than 32.

[Growled Member]

I too found 64 bit less stable.

[08993]

Arch is a rock solid 64 bit Distro, but the devs are strictly against multi-libs (32 bit app compatibility) which is why it is so solid. Stray from the path and you can get in a mess quickly.

I posted a thread a while back about 64 bit woes with Linux, seems the only way to maintain a clean 64 bit system is to have a separate chroot to run 32 bit apps in, a PITA since Wine is only 32 bit which is what is causing the most commotion.

Hence, if you don't use Wine, go for it. If you use Wine a lot, think carefully, Wine requires lots of 32 bit libs (sound, video, input etc.) and it's messy.

[Matthew S.]

^ I don't use Wine since I have always dual booted :)

[Growled Member]

It's not just wine. When I was trying openSuse 64 bit, flash would only work in 32 bit mode and with some native Linux games you had to do some creative workarounds.

[Matthew S.]

^ theres a 64bit flash player for linux.

[Elv13]

But not most games, even open source one. Quake4, Unreal 2004, Sauerbraten and some other work better or only on 32bit. Fortunally, NVIDIA driver provide multilib support.

[Barney T. Administrators]

64 Linux linux is less stable than 32bit. It is less tester, making it less stable. Just take firefox for example, it is easier to crash it in 64bit than 32.

I have not found this to be the case. I've run Debian 5 Lenny x64 for almost 2 years and it has never crashed once. I use Firefox exclusively as a browser and never had any issues at all. Can you give a source for this data?

This article says exactly the opposite:

Using TuxRadar as an example, we know that 77% of our visitors run a 32-bit Linux distro, which is astonishing given that 64-bit Linux has been around for so long. All modern Intel chips support 64-bit out of the box - that's all Core 2 chips and all Core i7 chips, plus most Xeons and many Celerons. On AMD's side, all Athlon 64, Turion 64, Phenom and Phenom II chips also support 64-bit. But although Linux was first out of the door with support for these chips, early implementations were plagued with problems and extensive use of compatibility layers was needed to make things work.

No longer. Thanks to extensive testing and feedback from the community, 64-bit Linux is as stable as 32-bit Linux, so there's little reason not to use it unless you have a need for a specific, 32-bit only app. Even Wine happily supports 32-bit Windows apps such as Microsoft Office or Half-Life 2 running on a 64-bit Linux installation, and cross-platform mainstays such as VMware, VirtualBox and Java have already been ported.

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/ubuntu-904...-bit-benchmarks

[Elv13]

My own firefox and experiences with a 32bit laptop and 64bit desktop

[Ve7878]

On Linux you'll find that most applications will be build in x64 so it should work great. I'm not a Ubuntu user but I know that for the most part x64 Ubuntu isn't a bad distro. I currently have Slackware 12.2 compiled with a PAE kernel and OpenSuSE with a PAE Kernel (ATi Drivers won't work properly on x64 OpenSuSE).

[yanowhiz]

I had an older laptop (maybe 2-3 years old) that I put 64-bit Ubuntu on it (it has a 64-bit AMD processor). I did have problems though trying to find 64-bit version of drivers, the 32-bit of Ubuntu worked fine though.

[Matthew S.]

well I installed 64bit ubuntu 9.04 on my new system, works flawlessly so far. my old system now runs 32bit ubuntu solely, gonna use it as a server.

[Lord Ba'al]

If your hardware supports it, go for it.

Does Flash work properly on 64-bit Linux now? Last time I used it (A while back, actually) nothing worked. I'd be really surprised if support has not been added yet.

I'm using the 64-bit flash plugin together with 64-bit Opera 10 beta 2 (build 4502), works fine here :yes: