Raymond Wan wrote:
I'm not an expert on this, but looked into this briefly as I was worried about the level of support. From asking around, it seems that you can install 32-bit Linux on a 64-bit machine, but of course, you lose all the benefits of the 64 bits (access to larger disks and more memory per process). As an example, when I purchased my 64-bit machine, I was given the option to have Windows XP 32-bit or Windows XP 64-bit pre-installed for me. So yes, I guess a 32-bit OS can be installed.
This is getting off-topic, but to put this issue to rest, I can confirm that both 32-bit Debian and 32-bit Windows XP run on 64-bit AMD processors.
In the end, though, it's a bit silly to run a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit processor, since you're wasting all that extra, fancy 64-bit stuff.
Colin
