Should i uses 32-bit or 64 bit Ubuntu?

[Hrobakca]

redcenly bought a new machine and i wanted to know if i should use 32 bti or 64 bit linux. This is a 64 bit Win 7 machine see the specs below...

Operating system
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit

Windows 7
Processor
Intel® Core™ i3-550 Processor (3.20 GHz, 4 MB total cache)
Chipset
Intel® H57 Express
Form factor
Minitower
Memory
Standard memory
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Memory slots
4 DIMM
Storage
Internal drive bays
Two 3.5"
External drive bays
One 3.5"
Two 5.25"
Internal drive
320 GB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/s NCQ, Smart IV
Optical drive
16X SATA SuperMulti LightScribe DVD+/-RW
Graphics
Graphics
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Core i5
Expansion features
Ports
8 USB 2.0
1 VGA
1 DVI-D
1 RJ-45
1 SPDIF coaxial output
1 audio in
1 audio out
1 microphone in
(Select models have the following: 1 PS/2 keyboard; 1 PS/2 mouse; 1 serial)

Slots
1 full-height PCIe x16
3 full-height PCIe x1
1 mini PCI

Any assistance would be appreciated

[oz]

Hello and welcome!

I'd personally recommend running 64-bit. You can check this poll to see what others are running:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...ux-2011-a.html

[Mudgen]

Although I personally run 64 bit anywhere the cpu supports it, what you should do depends on your purpose. On the hardware you cite, 64 vs. 32 won't really make any significant performance difference, but there are some things that take some Googling and tweaking to make work in x86_64, so if out-of-the-box ease of use is paramount, 32 bit could be a better choice for you.

[th1bill]

redcenly bought a new machine and i wanted to know if i should use 32 bti or 64 bit linux. This is a 64 bit Win 7 machine see the specs below...

Operating system
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit

Windows 7
Processor
Intel® Core™ i3-550 Processor (3.20 GHz, 4 MB total cache)
Chipset
Intel® H57 Express
Form factor
Minitower
Memory
Standard memory
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Memory slots
4 DIMM
Storage
Internal drive bays
Two 3.5"
External drive bays
One 3.5"
Two 5.25"
Internal drive
320 GB 7200 rpm SATA 3.0 Gb/s NCQ, Smart IV
Optical drive
16X SATA SuperMulti LightScribe DVD+/-RW
Graphics
Graphics
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Core i5
Expansion features
Ports
8 USB 2.0
1 VGA
1 DVI-D
1 RJ-45
1 SPDIF coaxial output
1 audio in
1 audio out
1 microphone in
(Select models have the following: 1 PS/2 keyboard; 1 PS/2 mouse; 1 serial)

Slots
1 full-height PCIe x16
3 full-height PCIe x1
1 mini PCI

Any assistance would be appreciated

I looked at your specs and you are going to want to run 64 bit for one great and important reason... you have a mainboard capable of more than 4gig of RAM and with 32 bit you need to add a program to use 4 gig. instead of 3.5 gig. With 4 slots and DDR3 I'd bet you can supercharge with as much as 16 gig of memory.

I'm still running 32 bit but my board is older than yours.

[previso]

64-bit video driver supportwould be my criteria. Otherwise, think of the possibilities of virtualization on a 64-bit platform. I wish mine was 64-bit.

[dwpbike]

ubuntu does not like my nvidia on an old hp touchsmart. i can live without throbbing icons, but the sometime full screen is irritatiing.

[Mudgen]

I looked at your specs and you are going to want to run 64 bit for one great and important reason... you have a mainboard capable of more than 4gig of RAM and with 32 bit you need to add a program to use 4 gig. instead of 3.5 gig.

Actually, all current 32-bit SMP and PAE kernels can use up to 64Gb. The per process limit is 4Gb.

[ExplodingCD]

well 64 bit will be faster, but besides that, there won't be any other reason to get it.
I wouldn't recommend going the extra mile (or should I say extra 32 bits) until after you have tried the 32 bit linux

[BillybobT]

I recently built a system similar to yours (identical, really, except for NVIDIA 7950GT video) as an upgrade to a Dell XPS-400 Pentium-D system. I decided on using Maverick 32-bit and I'm glad I did. The performance is head and shoulders above what I was using before. I'm only using 4GB memory and couldn't be happier with the performance so far.

[neildomo]

I'd try both, actually. If 64-bit works with your hardware, go with that. Unfortunately the ATI Radeon driver for 64-bit was buggy, and Adobe's flash didn't work well at all in 64-bit, so I went back to 32-bit. I'd recommend creating two root disks and one 'home' disk, where your data/files sits. You can then install 32-bit in one root disk and 64-bit in the other. Mount the 'home' disk regardless of which OS you boot into, so you can switch back and forth rather effortlessly.