Should I fall back to 32 bit?

[Craig Hagerman]

On 9/4/06, benben <benhongh.mlist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I have a Pentium D pc and a few weeks ago I finally made the transition
> to Ubuntu Linux AMD64 version from Windows.
>
> However, it also comes with a number of 64 bit incompatibility issues
> which to this date I am unable to solve. For example, the Intel graphics
> driver does not do any hardware acceleration, SCIM does not work on
> OpenOffice, I can't play a number of media such as flash and wmv.
>
> I was forced to set up a vmware server on top of which runs a windows as
> backup.
>
> So I decided maybe I should give 32 bit Linux a try. Perhaps that'd
> solve some of the problems. But on the other hand I am concerned about
> the performance impact it would bring.
>
> So what would you guys say? Should I stay with AMD64 or switch to x86?
> To what scale would the performance impact be, and what things I shall
> be careful with?
>
> Regards,
> Ben
>

I think this question really hinges on what you use the computer for?
A similar question just came up on the Debian AMD64 mailing list.
People who do serious number crunching said they benifited from the 64
bits and the performance improvement was hit. But for people using the
machine as a normal desktop PC there is no difference in performance
and there are several hassles (flash, wine, Open office, etc).

Personally, I have been using Debian unstable AMD64 for almost 3 years
now but have recently been questioning that. I always had the attitude
that within a short time in the future things would be rosy for
AMD64... but here I am 3 years later with the same hassles. That is
becauase my machine is mostly a media server. I use it to store and
play TV and movie video, music, etc. The 64 bit OS met almost all of
my needs, but just last weekend I decided to quit playing around with
32 bit choot (which doesn't work for picassa in my experience anyway)
and just reinstall a 32 bit OS. I backed up important files, wiped the
drive and spent yesterday and today installing, and setting up the 32
bit Ubuntu. For me, I think that 32 bit will prove to be much better,
but that is only because of how I use the machine. I think that is
what you have to think about.

Craig