Thinkpad advice?

[DaDirk]

I have installed Fedora 12 on my SL500 Thinkpad. Generally it seems to be working. I am not an experienced Linux user and am going through quite a learning curve at the moment but really excited to get it working.

I have a question:

My laptop's processor is a Core 2 Duo. Should I be running the 64 bit version of Fedora? What would be the best ISO download for me to get the optimum performance for my system...i386 or x86_64?

Thanks Fedora!
DaDirk

---------- Post added at 09:06 AM CST ---------- Previous post was at 08:48 AM CST ----------

I want to followup on my original post. After looking at the disk I made from the ISO I downloaded, my version seems to be Fedora 12-i686-L. What advice does anyone have? Should I stay with this or change to x86_64...or what?

[CSchwangler]

At the moment there is no real advantage in running 64 bit, except that you have to do extensive computation. 64 bit uses a bit more memory and consumes a bit more disk space. You will not encounter speed differences in daily use. So, my advice is to stay with 32 bit. The version you downloaded contains the Gnome desktop. The other major desktop for Fedora is KDE. If you don't know the difference, don't worry. You can install KDE later if you want. Since you seem to have downloaded a liveCD, I would suggest you try if it runs properly on your machine and if you like it, then don't hesitate and install it.

[DaDirk]

Thanks CSchwangler,

Your answer is very helpful. I did go ahead and install Fedora 12 to my hard drive. The process went smoothly. After that, I have been busy trying to learn how to put it to use. I am learning about yum and have added some programs accordingly. It appears I did not have any Flash support with Firefox so I had to figure out how to install it. I also added pdf support. These both seemed to install properly.

My main goal woth Fedora is to use it with Ardour. I have installed the latter but have not gotten it to open as yet. I continue to get the message that Ardour could not start Jack. I am trying to work through it...any suggestions?

DaDirk

[marko]

At the moment there is no real advantage in running 64 bit,

Getting twice as many cpu registers is a bit plus with x86_64

[CSchwangler]

Agreed, but is that relevant for normal computer use? Do you see a significant difference between 32 and 64 bit for daily tasks?