64 bit Jaunty...what works, what doesnt?

Ladies, and gentlemen of NBR, I've been playing around with the 32 bit, beta version of Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) on my MSI 1651. So far it's been a fantastic experience and tonight I'm thinking of installing the 64 bit version on an ext 4 partition to take advantage of the 4gbs of RAM on this laptop.

So the question is, what works well and what works poorly with the 64 bit version in 9.04? The last time I tried 8.10 (Intrepid) 64 bit, Firefox/Flash crashed so often that I ended going back to 32 bit. Has there been any improvement on this in 9.04?

What other common pitfalls should I be aware of in the 64 bit version of 9.04?

Thanks!

 

I downloaded the live x64 CD and installed it on my desktop and couldn't get gnome to start up properly with my hardware. I spent numerous hours last night trying to get it work and gave up. I figured it if would work on Sabayon, it should work for Ubuntu.So I re-installedl Sabayon 4.1 x64 and copied the xorg.conf to use on my Ubuntu. After re-installing Ubuntu 9.04 and overwriting xorg.conf, gnome started up for me. I should of done this from the get go but I wanted to see if I could fix this without all the re-installation.

Firefox works good and its fast for me. I'm still testing out the distro and will list anything I come across.

If you want to download the latest live version then go here and beat the rush.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1132243

Live CD Link: http://cdimage.ubuntulinux.org/daily-live/current/

Live DVD link: http://cdimage.ubuntulinux.org/dvd/current/

There probably be some minor upgrades tomorrow but you can always do upgrade tomorrow to have the current system.

 

No reason at all to use 32bit any more. If you have problems with flash, use the 64bit alpha release: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Just gotta extract the file to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and you're off and running. The only pitfalls with the 64bit version are if you're running 32bit software as a plugin for a 64bit browser Adobe hasn't released an official 64bit version of Flash, which is why you were running into problems before. The alpha release isn't official, but I use it on 4 different 64bit machines and it works fine on all of them, HD youtube and all. Just not fullscreen, which sucks under Windows too

 

I have Acer6935G and I noticed that not working : suspend/hibermate,
FN brightness buttons, no sound (need to install alsa1.0.19), cannot use 5.1 sound.
In my opinion it does not look good

 

Most of those problems are unfortunately related to crappy ACPI implementations. Many computer manufacturers create custom drivers for Windows, so things work great as long as you run Windows, but Linux doesn't know about the quirks, so it gets unhappy.

Unfortunately, the same thing happens with sound drivers. I know for a fact that 5.1 channel sound works under Linux. I regularly record HDTV shows and play them back in surround sound, and all my DVD's that I've ripped I just copy the 5.1 AC3 audio stream unaltered, and it plays back on all 5.1 of my speakers with an SPDIF link from my media center to my stereo. So it's not a general Linux issue. It's a specific hardware issue, and it looks like you pulled the short end of the stick. If you consider running Linux, make sure you check your hardware compatibility. There are a bunch of crappily designed laptops that make hardware very much Windows-only due to hardware bugs and hacks.

 

Thanks guys.

Just installed Jaunty 64bit and will probably download some packages overnight before putting it through the paces.

 

I know that there are always some problems with Linux on Laptop. When I had Ubuntu 8.10, at least FN butons worked correctly, so for me it a step back. If someone thinks seriously about creating operating system for Laptops, such functions as suspend/hibernate must work.