[kwlug-disc] 64bit installs

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Insurance Squared Inc. <
gcooke at insurancesquared.com> wrote:

> After my new computer purchase a few weeks ago, upgrading to 4 gigs of ram
> and some shiny DDR 3 and a 64 bit processor, I figured I'd best get into a
> 64 bit OS.  So I installed a current version of Mandriva 64bit.
>
> The experience was an epic fail.  I've put my wife's computer back to 32
> bit mandriva and I'm in the process of reverting mine to 32 bit as well.
>
> Recent installs of linux have just plain worked.  The 64 bit version
> however was like a flashback to 2000, nothing worked.  No sound.  No youtube
> videos.  No adobe flash.  Losing a half a gig of ram for no clear reason
> (why when I was your age, we were happy to have just a half a gig).  And all
> sorts of weird problems with LAMP on my desktop.  In fact I needed to build
> a new site on my desktop and was unable to get wordpress running after a
> half day of tinkering.  It was quicker to reinstall 32 bit linux than
> continue working on the 64 bit version.
>
> I'm not unhappy, just saddened that the 64 bit OS doesn't work for desktop
> use.  And perhaps weirdly enough, I don't think there was any noticeable
> speed benefit to the 64bit.
>

I can't talk about Mandriva, since I have not used them in many years.

But I am typing this on a 64bit Kubuntu 10.04 64bit laptop with no issues.
Sound has worked on it from day one. The mic worked initially, then stopped
working, and I found out that it was a combination of alsamixer having
levels
set too high and a misconfiguration in Skype. Everything is back to normal.

Adobe Flash works fine, and is sandboxed in its own wrapper process around
the 32-bit version. That makes it nicer since killing it when it runs astray
does
not kill all the browser windows.

All my new computers are 64 bits. The only ones that are 32bits are those
who have CPUs that cannot support 64bits (e.g. the Sempron print server).
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
http://2bits.com
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
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