[Tfug] Distro 32 or 64 bit?

[Bowie J. Poag]

Depends on what you want to do, and on your level of proficiency, really.

I know someone who i'd call extremely proficient who had difficulty 
getting Kubuntu 64-bit to behave well on his hardware. Meanwhile, I had 
no problems whatsoever with Kubuntu on the exact same hardware. Of 
course, that makes me look like the brighter of the two of us, but, 
unfortunately, it's more a question of having fewer demands versus more 
demands, less cruft on the box versus more cruft, stuff like that. :) Me 
not smarter--He is. He's Rain Man, i'm..Partly Cloudy with a 10% Chance 
Of Rain Man. Hi Paul. :)

I run a fairly minimal system...I only put on it what I need, and grow 
it over time as need be. His preference, on the other hand, is the polar 
opposite. He puts everything humanly imaginable on his system and then 
never gives it time to settle. His workstation is constantly in a state 
of flux, so things break pretty regularly for him. By constantly 
updating this, patching that, you're just opening the door to alot of 
headaches with near-zero to zero benefit, as I see it. Sure, it's up to 
date practically to the hour, but what difference does it make if the 
update only fixes obscure problems with packages you'd never use or 
encounter anyway?

If you keep your footprint minimal, pretty much everything is 
64-bit-happy these days, so, you're good to go on that front. If you 
want a system full of cruft, be prepared to see some hangups. Always 
travel light. Thats about the clearest answer I can give.

Cheers,
Bowie


hharden71 at netzero.net wrote:
> I would have asked this at the last happy hour, 
> but I couldn't make it. 
>
> I have a new HP Compaq PC with an Intel E2180 processor.
> Do I want to go with a 64 bit distro? 
> Is there an advantage to going with a 32 bit distro?
>
> Thanks
> Henry H.
>
>
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