32- vs 64-bit versions of kubuntu

[chuck adams]

The question came up recently, and I'm sure it does come
up periodically, about running either the 32- or 64-bit
versions of an operating system on a 32-bit processor.

The "power users" of computers are those individuals
that are doing high end physics, chemistry, computational
fluid dynamics, finite element analysis for large structures,
atmospheric climate modeling, and the list goes on and on.
These are the people that want and need 64-bit systems.
Most of them are writing their own codes.  I am one of
those users as I have codes that will bring any system
to its knees.

I run AMD 64x2 systems (10+).  I started using 8.04
beta when it came out, then shortly after that I started
doing daily downloads of the daily-live builds.  This
makes things more interesting as things break from time
to time.  :-)

Then when the question came up about 32- vs 64-bit
I started downloading both versions.  This is a new
series of tests, so it is work in progress and I"ll report
interesting results from time to time.

Here is some stuff that might interest you and the
developers:

1.  A couple of days ago a new graphic appeared on
the disc partitioner for the installation.  This will help
the newbies quite a bit IMHO.  Nice work guys and
girls.

2.  I have a ECS Elitegroup GeForce7050M-M mobo
with NVidia GeForce7050 graphics chip set.  The system
has 4GB of DD2 ram and 0.5TB disc space.

With 32-bit system installed I get 3.1GB of available memory
as expected and advertised.

The interesting thing is the NVidia-glx-new behaviour.
With the 32-bit system, the O/S sees the card and asks
me to install the restricted drivers (nvidia-glx-new) and
then upon reboot I can get the full 1280x1024 screen
resolution.  For the 64-bit version it does not see the
card in todays version of the O/S.  

Installation of nvidia-glx-new for the 64-bit system does
not work and in fact breaks the X11 system totally upon
reboot.

These are the things that make working with computers
interesting and gives us something to do every day......

I don't expect too many individuals want to do this daily.
At the present time as I write this the daily-live system
is not available on the Internet.

FYI

Chuck Adams, PhD (retired rocket scientist)  :-)