[ubuntu-uk] 10.04: 64-bit or 32-bit install?

[David]

I suspect that this is a bit of an FAQ (albeit one with constantly-changing 
answers..), apologies if so. I have done some web searching on 64-bit issues, 
but there's a lot of (also constantly-changing) information to read through..

I've just bought a new 64-bit PC (my first), and am wondering whether or
not I should install the 64-bit version of Ubuntu (10.04) or just stick
with the 32-bit version?

I probably don't really have any _need_ ("only" 3 GB RAM) for 64-bit Linux 
(presumably 32-bit Linux will work on x86_64 CPUs (Athlon II X2 dual-core, 
fwiw) near enough as efficiently as 64-bit Linux would?), but as we'll all
have to get there sooner or later, I'm wondering if I should make the
leap now?

I don't have any particularly high-performance requirements (I plan to
run BOINC (which may be an issue as I think most/all BOINC projects are
32-bit), but BOINC will get whatever resources I feel comfortable
throwing at it, rather than being the main use of the system: the main
issue will be "can I get the BOINC projects to work" rather than "can I
squeeze every last drop of CPU power for them"), but I will be doing a lot 
of the usual desktop things which might be problematic in a 64-bit 
environment:

Nvidia drivers

Firefox (plus a variety of add-ons, any potential issues there?)

Flash (in Firefox, particularly BBC iPlayer, 4OD, etc, which are
must-haves! Adobe's withdrawal of Flash-64 sounds like a warning..)

Java plug-in in Firefox

Thunderbird (again, any potential issues with extensions?)

OpenOffice, GnuCash, Gimp

a local LAMP (P=PHP) set-up, although to be honest I tend to do very
little web dev at home these days, mainly at work instead.


If I need to install 32-bit apps in a 64-bit OS, is this a painful
process? Any particularly convoluted set-up or reliability issues that I
need to be aware of?

As I said, I don't think I have any real need for 64-bit, so if trying
to set up a 64-bit system to meet all my requirements would be a *real*
pain, then I'd probably be best not bothering, but if only a relatively
small amount of pain is involved (I'm fairly experienced with Linux and
have little fear of the command line), then maybe it might be worth a
go.


If I could also ask a couple of related questions:

What's the general view on the size of the swap partition these days? Is 
2x RAM still the best policy?

ext3 v ext4? I've heard various grumbles about ext4 being slower (I
think it was something to do with rewriting files during software
updates in particular? - I've forgotten the exact details), and it also
still seems a bit 'new' ..or am I just worrying too much?


Thanks for any advice,

David.


-- David.  Edinburgh, Scotland. ---- 
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