Ease of 32bit vs 64bit installation (was: Re: Lubuntu 12.10 on AMD Athlon 1800+ XP and 1GB RAM: installation crashes )

[Jonathan Marsden]

On 06/16/2013 09:15 AM, Eric Bradshaw wrote:

> On 06/16/2013 08:39 AM, Jonathan Marsden wrote:
>> On 06/16/2013 06:40 AM, Eric Bradshaw wrote:

>>> One thing I'd like to add is I don't mess with the 64bit 
>>> installers - there is nothing wrong with installing a 32bit
>>> Lubuntu on a 64bit machine and (for me) makes it easier going
>>> forward.

>> Can you explain why?  What is the issue with the 64bit installer,
>> and have you filed a Launchpad bug about it, so we can duplicate
>> the issue and (hopefully) fix it?

> No bug. Nothing to fix. I just find it easier.

If it is different, such that i386 is easier to install than amd64,
please describe that difference.  It probably should not exist, and so
would be considered a bug :)  Can you document that difference for us?

> I may be accused of living in the past, but in my opinion, for now,
> there is more stability, less work-arounds needed, and more software
> available for 32bit.

I can't think of any of the close to 30000 packages in the default
Ubuntu repositories that is available for i386 but not on amd64.  There
may be something in multiverse where a commercial vendor has not
provided a 64bit version... which packages are you thinking of?
Likewise if you find Ubuntu software that is unstable on amd64 but
stable on i386, please do file a bug report about that.  Do you have any
specific examples?  Especially any that are reproducible?

> Plus, as I am usually installing on smaller hard drives and almost
> never have more than 2GB of RAM on a single computer (in fact my
> usual is somewhere between 512MB and 1 GB);

Oh, it's 100% fine to choose 32bit on smaller machines... but that is
different from saying the i386 install "makes it easier", or that 64bit
software is inherently less stable, or that software is not available
for 64bit Lubuntu that is available for 32bit Lubuntu.  The experience
should basically be the same, the available software from the official
Ubuntu repositories should be the same.

I'm not suggesting loading a 32bit OS on older hardware with low RAM is
bad; it probably makes sense.  But it should be a choice.  I'm just
wanting to make sure that any issues with installing and running the
64bit version on 64bit capable hardware are known about, and clearly
described.

> there is less memory usage with a 32 bit OS and software.

Have you quantified this difference running Lubuntu, and documented your
tests and their results somewhere?  That could be useful info.  Actually
we are (Ali is!) about to do some RAM usage tests for 13.10, and I had
not made testing 64bit vs 32bit a part of that... do you have solid test
showing the difference is big enough that we need to test both
architectures, because the installer may need more RAM for amd64 than
for i386 installs to succeed?

> Since this 32bit OS works on both 32bit and 64bit machines, I
> would choose, for now, the 32bit version.

That's 100% fine.  It is your choice.  But saying that you make the
choice because it is "easier" clearly implies that amd64 installs are
"harder" for you... which IMO ought not to be the case.  And we can't
fix bugs we do not know about.

> For me its like the difference between the IPv4 and IPv6 Internet
> protocols. The IPv6 technology is great for the future, but in my
> opinion, for the average user today; it isn't quite ready for
> prime-time.

I take it you do not live in Japan or other S.E Asian locations where I
am told you can't get a public IPv4 address from some ISPs any more :)

Have you actually tried using IPv6 in Lubuntu with an IPv6-friendly ISP?
 What happened?  Did you document your experience online somewhere, so
others can benefit from that?  I've played with IPv6, but don't have an
IPv6-friendly ISP, and setting up tunneling etc. works, but is not what
I'd expect a normal novice user to want to do :)

I'd actually be *very* interested in someone who does have an
IPv6-friendly ISP testing an Lubuntu install that is IPv6 only, perhaps
deliberately blocking all IPv4 at their firewall router and then doing
the install, and reporting how well it goes, how easy it is to do, etc.
 Why?  Because it may not be all that long before home users in the USA
and Europe also start getting "only" an IPv6 address rather than an IPv4
public address, and I think we would do well to be ready for that.  I
have not tested it, but I am told MS Windows is already fully capable of
working in such an IPv6-only environment.  We should be too.

>>> I also think you should wipe the hard drive clean first with DBAN

>> Can you explain the reason for this?  How and why would the installed
>> 10.04 break the 12.10 installer?

> I don't think the installed 10.04 would break the 12.10 installer at 
> all. However, a "clean" install of the OS is better - in my opinion.
> The 12.10 installer doesn't truly erase the old info off the hard
> drive when it says, "Erase and Install..." but DBAN does.

Right.  So, basically you are saying that it is "better" only for data
security purposes.  It is better if someone with a scanning electron
microsope has the time and money to use it on your hard drive to try to
recover the previous 10.04 filesystem.

Which may well be technically true, but for most people, that is not a
major concern... have you tried to recover an "old" Linux install after
a new Linux install has been written to the disk over it, and succeeded?
 In the system in question, since it has been sitting around unused for
2 years, I doubt it contained highly security sensitive information.  So
the "you should" statement was somewhat theoretical, rather than being a
practical suggestion for how to overcome the installation issue being
presented.  Fair enough.

BTW, I'm not trying to "pick on you" here!  I'd just like to get maximum
value for the community out of your experience and statements, by more
fully understanding what lies behind them.  Your organization has
probably done a lot more Lubuntu installations than the average user
ever will :)  Incidentally, a counter on your site showing how many PCs
you have given away running Lubuntu would be cool!

Jonathan