Fedora 11 64 bit or 32 bit

[mrwinkee]

When Fedora 11 is released in a few months is there any reason NOT to use the 64 bit version is you are planning on installing it with Raid 5?

And what about scanner, printer and video drivers?

Is there any reason to favor the 32 bit version?

[sideways]

use 32 bit if you have proprietary driver/software needs which don't have 64bit available.

Use 32bit if you have limited disc space (<10Gb) or ram (<=1GB)

Use 32bit if you are a noob and don't understand how 32bit and 64bit shared libs interact

[Demz]

dependds what printer you have?.. HP are the best under linux

[Perty]

I would say go for 32 bit if you want less trouble, as for example official Flash is only supported by 32 bit and Google Android SDK is only available in 32 bit and thos two is just the ones I care about, I think there is a lot more.

Even if you can share libraries and stuff, there is and could be a lot more than just installing some 32 bit libs (as in the android sdk case).

But on the other hand, if you go with 64 bit the transition to 64 bit may go faster when demand for 64 bit packages is being raised.

[MetaCarpal]

...for example official Flash is only supported by 32 bit...

Oh? Somebody better tell Adobe. They have a pre-release of the 64-bit flash plugin for Flash 10 (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html) available.

You have to manually install it, but at least it exists now.


Back on-topic - I'm running the 64-bit version, and I would only recommend that to anyone else if they either don't need any third-party packages or if they love being up to their elbows in resolving library dependencies and conflicts.

[zoinksbob]

I've been running the x64 version of Fedora for several years and have never had any problems, except that Flash seems glitchier on 64-bit. But it still works, mostly.

Driver compatibility is only a problem if you use closed-source third-party drivers. And I know that ATI and nVidia both support x64 for their graphics drivers.

If you're doing heavy graphics/video, or anything that requires lots of CPU power, then 64-bit should be significantly faster, since amd64 doubled the number of general-purpose registers versus i386.

[hephasteus]

Oh? Somebody better tell Adobe. They have a pre-release of the 64-bit flash plugin for Flash 10 (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html) available.

You have to manually install it, but at least it exists now.


Back on-topic - I'm running the 64-bit version, and I would only recommend that to anyone else if they either don't need any third-party packages or if they love being up to their elbows in resolving library dependencies and conflicts.

And they've only updated it once and it's sat there neglected for months. Google is dumping .flv and changing their videos over to .mp4 at a scarily rapid rate. 64-bit needs tons of support files for WINE though maybe wine 1.8 is a little better. I see 1.8 got popped into testing repository. But If i try to install 1.5 wine it wants 96 or so 32 bit support packages.

But back to opener. If you have 2 to 4 gb of ram you can get by with pae 32 bit. Which is processor address extension kernel. If you have more than 4gb of ram you have to run 64-bit. 2^32nd power gives you 4gb of address space. If you're new to linux with less than 4gb of ram stick to 32 bit version it's less hassle. If you do alot of floating point stuff go with 64bit it's tons faster. Windows will never switch to 64bit because nobody will recompile and fix up all the software out there. Linux will always have 64-bit code because it's open source and much of the code base is out there and worked on.Making linux a true 64-bit platform and windows a zombie 64-bit platform for years and years.

64-bit linux unrars like it's mad at the file. So anything based on Lempel-Ziv benefits from it which is basically most forms of compression from zip to gif to video codecs to you name it.

[mrwinkee]

And they've only updated it once and it's sat there neglected for months. Google is dumping .flv and changing their videos over to .mp4 at a scarily rapid rate. 64-bit needs tons of support files for WINE though maybe wine 1.8 is a little better. I see 1.8 got popped into testing repository. But If i try to install 1.5 wine it wants 96 or so 32 bit support packages.

But back to opener. If you have 2 to 4 gb of ram you can get by with pae 32 bit. Which is processor address extension kernel. If you have more than 4gb of ram you have to run 64-bit. 2^32nd power gives you 4gb of address space. If you're new to linux with less than 4gb of ram stick to 32 bit version it's less hassle. If you do alot of floating point stuff go with 64bit it's tons faster. Windows will never switch to 64bit because nobody will recompile and fix up all the software out there. Linux will always have 64-bit code because it's open source and much of the code base is out there and worked on.Making linux a true 64-bit platform and windows a zombie 64-bit platform for years and years.

64-bit linux unrars like it's mad at the file. So anything based on Lempel-Ziv benefits from it which is basically most forms of compression from zip to gif to video codecs to you name it.

But if you want a 64bit OS and need a certain app that is not 64bit, can't you run the 32 bit app on the 64bit system? Can't you also do the same for drivers and codecs?

[hephasteus]

But if you want a 64bit OS and need a certain app that is not 64bit, can't you run the 32 bit app on the 64bit system? Can't you also do the same for drivers and codecs?

Ya it just bloats the OS some because you have both 32 bit and 64 bit files on there. So not a real problem with huge hard drives today. At least that's the way I understand it to work. But some systems hardlink into the 64 bit stuff anyway being that some programs can run with them no problems?
I'm kinda holding out for wine 1.8 because I believe that's what they will be doing to minimize the 32 bit file bloating. I believe it should not need any of the 32 bit sound or codec or video stuff.

Wish I could give you a better answer but some of this stuff I try to understand just goes right through me without hitting anything solid. LOL

The VM progress hits walls while the kernel python hal device kit simple direct layer stuff tries to come in and enable and support it's functionality while wine just moves along like a relentless unstoppable meteor.

I find the progress disturbing so I distribute copies of this OS illegally to try to draw Redhat into a focus distorting, progress halting legal battle. But IT'S NOT WORKING!!!!!! It's like they don't even care. :D

[sideways]

But if you want a 64bit OS and need a certain app that is not 64bit, can't you run the 32 bit app on the 64bit system? Can't you also do the same for drivers and codecs?

usually, but not for hardware drivers they must be 64bit, in some proprietary cases there is no 64bit option (eg some wifi drivers for use with ndiswrapper only come in win32 format)) Also, it can be an unsatisfactory solution. eg take mplayer, that's an excellent video player but it has some 32bit only codecs (just windows dlls in fact) which won't work with the 64bit version of mplayer. So you end up installing 32bit mplayer and now you have to install another media player to take advantage of the many open source 64bit codecs available.

Hence the system can get bloated. That's why I don't use x86_64 on small partitions. The ram usage per process can also be quite a bit higher than in 32bit, so I ensure +1GB for 64bit.

But for most people it's all a matter of taste. x86_64 is very well established now, and you'll hardly find anything that can't be made to work with not too much fuss.

:)

[Terre]

I've been running F11 in beta on my HP dv2810eu laptop for a weekend - once you get all the updates installed its been remarkably painless. All my hardware just works(tm), "installing" the adobe flash alpha was the easiest 2 step procedure I've done on fedora this weekend (maybe exaggerating) - only thing I'd recommend doing is leaving computer alone to update for about 30 mins before customising your setup.

I started installing and removing stuff before it was all updated, I think this complicated things for yum - ended up having to re-install - not completely sure that it was my fault & updates or just some random bug... Will probably be even easier for you. If you wait for full release.

Backup and have a go with 64 bit - I definitely recommend it!

[cksmuck]

Terre, I have been trying to install Fedora 11 (alpha and beta) from DVD with no luck on an HP dv1285dx. I cannot get it to upgrade or install. It goes through the media check screen then goes blank after that....any ideas???:(:(

[Terre]

Terre, I have been trying to install Fedora 11 (alpha and beta) from DVD with no luck on an HP dv1285dx. I cannot get it to upgrade or install. It goes through the media check screen then goes blank after that....any ideas???:(:(

cksmuck, I used the DVD too - the sha256sum on my disc went through fine, have you checked that to ensure that your download isn't missing a couple of bytes? I didn't have any issues with the media check the second time round, although the first time I downloaded fedora from an http source and it was corrupted. This caused my installer to hang at about 30% through the media check.

If you're sure you've got a good version of Fedora, does it make any difference whether or not you skip the media check?

I don't know if any of our enlightened Fedora gurus would know if there's a specific log file generated at this point which you might be able to refer to?

Hope you get the beta installed in the end - its a clear incremental improvement if you can get it working!!

[cksmuck]

I'll get back to you after I try a couple of different mirrors. I tried the yum upgrade as well and I do have the upgrade listed in grub as a boot option, but alas Fedora goes through to the blue and white line loading screen only to have X crash....

[Terre]

How frustrating.

I do really recommend the torrent if thats an option for you - you'll rarely if ever get a corrupt file from the torrent because of the built in file checking...

[Perty]

Terre, I have been trying to install Fedora 11 (alpha and beta) from DVD with no luck on an HP dv1285dx. I cannot get it to upgrade or install. It goes through the media check screen then goes blank after that....any ideas???:(:(

I have a HP8530w and I had to run the non graphical install, I think there may be some issues with the new gfx noveaux driver.

[cksmuck]

Therein lies the problem for me, after I install from the DVD I get no graphic or NON-graphic install...the screen just goes blank. The upgrade on my grub does almost the same...blue and white bars, Fedora 10.86 lights up, then the wireless indicator lights up and the screen goes blank with no way to open a terminal to start x!