Fedora 9 32 or 64 Bit - Which One?

[Nifty Fedora Mitch]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 03:28:30PM -0400, Charlie McVeigh wrote:
> 
> I apologize if this question has been asked before.   I have a new
> Thinkpad T61 in scheduled to arrive sometime next week.  I want to
> install Fedora 9 on it.   Being as it has a Core 2 Duo processor, I
> assume I can install the 64 bit version of Fedora 9.  My question is
> what are the pros and cons that I need to consider when choosing 32 or
> 64 bit version of Fedora 9?  I am currently using a Thinkpad T42
> running Fedora Core 7, so I have no experience with 64 bit linux or
> associated issues.
> 

If you have to ask the answer is 32bit.

Two things: wireless and firefox plugins work smoother on 32 bit for me.

If your laptop disk is not massive, pairs of 32 and 64 bit libs could add
up and prove problematic for disk space.  Also since this is a laptop it
is possible that the low power cpu, small processor cache, memory and disk subsystems
would limit any performance improvement that 64bit objects might gain.

Having said this I have two 64 bit laptops.  The older one running
F8/32bit and the newer running F9/64bit.  I found that Fedora 8 was
just too early  for 64 bit.  I like F9 but it still has some issues to
be addressed.  Not so many that I felt a need to  back off and reinstall
the way I did on F8.

When F10 is out I plan to revisit 32 .vs. 64 bit on the older laptop
then update the older laptop to match once I re-decide.   I have found
that I do most of my "64bit work" on a desk side running in the corner
on my wireless net and the laptop can be running anything.

Of interest you might try some of the livecd images and test drive
the two.

Summary:
IMO, If you have to ask, the answer for a laptop is 32bit.


-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
	Found me a new hat, now what?
b