[PLUG] 32-bit vs. 64-bit: Decision Criteria

[Fedor Pikus]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Mar 2011, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>
> > 1. Do you need clean access to more than 4 GB RAM? (I don't consider
> >   PAE "clean" access.)
> > 2. Does the system in question need to be in production past 3:14 am
> >   on Jan 19, 2038?
>
>   No. No.
>
> > Otherwise, either will suffice. I've had really good luck with 64-bit
> > installations on servers and occasional-use laptops, but I haven't had a
> > use-every-day Linux workstation in several years (though that will change
> > within the next three months).
>
>   That's what I thought, Paul. I was curious and waiting for a 729M file to
> download so I thought to check my understanding.
>
> Many thanks,
>
>
If you have 2GB of RAM or less, 32-bit install may be a bit easier.  It'll
probably be smaller (all 64-bit installs require some 32-bit libraries).
Some applications are 32-bit only: many commercial games and things like
Acrobat, but there are also Open Source programs which do not build well on
64-bit architectures (OSS is somewhat behind enterprise commercial software
development here, 64-bit is now often primary supported platform, I'm
beginning to see 32-bit support dropped from heavy-computing tools).

-- 
Fedor G Pikus (fpikus at gmail.com)
http://www.pikus.net
http://wild-light.com