What's keeping you from going 64bit?

I want to help users who want to go 64bit but have one issue or another, or maybe just has some fear and wants someone to help them through the upgrade. I am in no way forcing anyone to go 64bit, but even if some people troll i will just dispel their FUD and help people understand more about 64bit in the end. Share your problems!

 

I went 64b on my ntb in 2006, was Debian first and then Fedora and now CentOS (RHEL). Biggest problems were Java and that crap from Adobe (flash). But like year back i think even those things improved to such degree, that i think there is no real reason to stay on 32 bits, particularly if you have more RAM (4gb+).
I went further even on servers i administrate and just finished migration from 32 -> 64b this year.
Older applications, not supported on 32b run on VM's now.
Performance went up even compared to PAE kernels ....

so ./sign this tread

 

What is this "./sign", is that a reference to .hack the manga or anime?

 

Hmm. Aren't most applications in 32bit mode, I guess that's one...
Also, I don't think the intel mobile atoms have 64bit capability, and I like to keep things standard across all my computers.

 

I used 64 bit and liked it but I ran into a couple of issues...

1.) Flash player plugin. This was big. My firefox was 64 bit and I tried the alpha 64 bit flash player. It worked most of the time but certain flash content just killed my browser completely(killed the Firefox process with no warning). I tried Nspluginwrapper and had no luck, so I just stuck with the semi functional 64 plugin.

2.) I was using Debian and was trying to install install the Nvidia drivers and gave up. I was trying to install the drivers using the Debian method and ad trouble getting the source for my 64 bit kernel.

 

Gnash just came out with a new version, and the 64bit flash plugin is a lot better now. Also the Nvidia 64bit drivers work perfectly as long as you use the latest version which is no harder than getting the latest version in windows.

 

I tried Gnash before and it flat out didn't work. Maybe the new version will be better, I don't know. Using the Debian method requires me to get the source code for the kernel I was using and for some reason I couldn't acquire it. Over all it was a pain. Ubuntu was very easy in this regard with the Nvidia drivers.

 

I use 64 bit, but I really can't really can't tell any performance difference....PAE works for large ram in 32 bit also. So...no biggie right now in my estimation.

 

Problems with Flash have always kept me off 64 bit even though I have 4gb of ram. Gnash didn't work so well for me a 1 1/2 years ago. Maybe it's improved a lot?

What is the deal with FF 3.5 and how it handles flash media via html 5? Haven't really followed up on that after hearing about it.

If there is a workable alternative to flash video for 64bit, I'm there.

 

Oh, also what common software does not work in 64 bit? I'm mostly concerned with running media apps, office stuff, wine, etc. Are there any obvious dealbreakers out there?

 

There's a 64bit plugin for Flash by Adobe themselves now, but Gnash should work just fine. Firefox 3.5 doesn't handle flash through html 5 but it handles it a lot better than firefox 2.0 that's for sure. No software should have problems even if it's 32bit only, you can just load up the 32bit libraries.

 

OK, when Karmic hits I am going to give 64bit a shot!

 

The answer to all 64bit specific issues lays in a chroot environment. I removed my chroot a few months ago tho, 64bit is here for me.

& if anyone's wondering about performance - the average user wouldn't see it, the small gain uses more resources. Do plenty of media stuff tho (video encoding, image rendering, etc) & you'll be a happy user.

What still sucks is the lack of 64bit software for Windows - they're really behind here...

 

Most of us watch anime, Video DECODING is the big whoop.

 

I've never used a 32-bit OS on my laptop They're so last generation xD

Never had any issues whatsoever, not with wine, games or flash. I do mostly coding in linux, no video or music editing.

BTW using ubuntu x64 Jaunty.

 

The fact that I only have 2GB of RAM on my laptop. I *do* use 64bit on my desktop.

 

2GB of RAM will benefit from 64bit too, it's not just about RAM.

 

What about with only 512MB and some of that is shared with the intel graphics?

 

Yes, I've heard that. But since I'm planning on upgrading my RAM, I'll probably upgrade then.

 

Using 64bit is all about using all the resources you possibly can. With 512MB you're gonna want to reserve some of that to keep the system responsive. 64bit would have you paging your swap like mad, so stick with 32bit.

 

512MB means you need a couple new sticks of RAM. No offense, but it's REALLY cheap nowadays.

I haven't had any problems with 64-bit Linux, it's just that Linux isn't for me. Apart from the quick aircrack for which i keep a BackTrack DVD handy, i simply have requirements that Linux is not able to fulfill. My custom-made router runs on Linux though.

 

Mmmm, PC2700 172-pin 2.5V MicroDimm memory doesn't look really cheap to me. When my system very rarely needs to use the swap partition, I've currently got email, a web browser with 14 tabs (admittedly a few more than I usually have open) and a windows app running under wine, the 'free' command shows me:

Code:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        508200     389680     118520          0      10512     143952
-/+ buffers/cache:     235216     272984
Swap:      1124508          0    1124508

Why would I want to spend a 108.00 GBP to upgrade to the maximum 1GB of memory for my notebook when I have no need for it?

PS. Calvin thanks for answering my question.

 

what's keeping me from 64bit? lets see... I need to reformat the entire system.

 

I'm on 64bit Ubuntu now.

 

what about the other applications? i am just planning to start using 64 bit linux on a machine which is yet to come (buying inspiron 14 in a month - C2D 2.26GHz, 2 GB RAM -max poss. 4)
i was wondering that if instead of spending 4-5K indian Rs on a vista license, if i get a free OS, (admittedly, i have never used one, but having no other options will mean i ll learn real quick) and all supporting software which is 64 bit, it will be much better and cheaper too.

 

@ timberwolf, some of us do more on our computers than just read email. The reason i suggested a RAM upgrade, is that in 90% of cases, the best way to speed up your computer is to add more RAM. 512MB might have been a lot 5 years ago, but it's barely enough today.

Besides, if you don't do it now, DDR1 prices will continue to rise as it becomes scarcer, so you will have to get a whole new machine instead.