FWIW I run 64-bit Linux (not *ubuntu tho) on both my server and laptop and have experienced no problems due to 64-bitness. Most distros include whatever mojo is needed to make proprietary browser plugins work out-of-the-box.
The more proprietary software you need, I imagine the more likely you are to run into problems. Things like proprietary kernel modules for video cards, winmodems, scanner firmware, and the like. A 64-bit OS can make use of >4GB addressable memory--and addressable memory is physical memory plus virtual memory. The ratio can vary and is partially dependent on some kernel parameters, but I believe there was a kerneltrap thread where Linus said that 32-bit Linux started to get memory-starved at anything above 1GB physical RAM, due to lack of addressable virtual memory beyond that. If you're searching, I think it was the same thread where Linus said Linux probably supports PAE better than any other OS, but the technology is basically crap. Whether that's true or not, I use a 64-bit OS on machines with less than 4GB RAM without any noticeable performance hit, mostly because I want to be able to use the same binaries on all of my machines. -- CatBus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CatBus's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7461 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40256 _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/unix
