64-bit. I remember, way back, when 64-bit machines came out. I was excited and I got it so I could run a Linux 64 bit OS. From the beginning I had no issue. My box is old now (probably among the first AMD dual core 64 bit Athlons). I just put in a 8 GB swap file (remember when memory was beyond the price range of mere mortals) and I have not looked back since. I have always invested a little time tweaking (think prelink): last weekend I tweaked my Firefox and I am getting consistent page loading in under 3 seconds for low graphic pages. In short, I should not even be bothering with a 64-bit OS, but I have had it now for a some years and since Ubuntu distribution upgrading is done inside Ubuntu flawlessly (no re-installation required), at the end of the day I have to agree that the "warning of the package" approach is a red herring ... which I would heartily accept, if the sushi was fresh! In summary, you try to make Linux scary, but that is not the user experience. Now Windows, on the other hand, .... try installing it (pick any version you please) followed by 1000 programs, then come back and educate me. Cheers!

Thanks for the reminder Marcel! ... and this goes to the FOSS community in general; they need to give themselves credit, if not for the top-notch software, then at least for keeping the bigger software firms in check and on the edge of their seats.

I watched my buddy who's a die-hard Ubuntuan bring home a new Core i-7 laptop (with win 7 ultimate pre-installed) and literary boot it up and immediately wipped the HD clean and did a fresh install of Lucid Lynx. I said to him, "dude, you must have balls to completely disregard checking out the new features in win 7!"

His comment was "I havent used Windows in 3 years ...if it aint open source, it aint good enough."

Odd as it may seem, but Linux may suffer from a lack of quality assurance/control. I recently built a nice quad core AMD system. RedHat 5.5 64 bit server would install just fine, but Ubuntu 10 and Sidux 64 bit versions would not with the default installs. I discovered after some experimentation that if I made a small /boot partition, then Ubuntu or Sidux would install just fine. Now I am guessing that most Linux kernel and distro development is on fairly bleeding edge hardware, but to have two different Debian variants fail their default installations on a decent, but not bleeding edge system, is highly annoying. What is RedHat doing right that Canonical is doing wrong? Until Ubuntu has as flawless an install as Windows or RedHat, it's adoption will suffer no matter how pretty the eye candy in the GNOME desktop environment.

I prefer Debian over RedHat due to the apt-get package management system. It's generally a no fuss, mostly painless process compared to yum. But RedHat makes system configuration easier generally. For example, it's relatively trivial to tweak the iptables firewall in RedHat. One can manually edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables with little effort or fuss. Trying to figure out which file to edit and how to fix the ufw iptables configuration is not as simple or as trivial. While running an Ubuntu 10 KVM server, I had to disable iptables because the firewall was blocking outside access to the virtual machines. I do not have this trouble with RedHat 6 beta 2 which is rough and bleeding edge software. The average user will not put up with these kinds of hassles, but avid Linux users do all of the time.

Since Ubuntu changed to the PAE kernel lately which can utilize upto 64 Gb memory, there is no need for an average user to install 64 bit Ubuntu.
No tests could show significant improvement in the 64 bit Ubuntu compared to the 32 bit. Specific software of course (which uses specific CPU instructions) can speed up tenfolds.
In other words, while specific software will benefit hugely from the 64 bit kernel and OS, everyday usage would suffer greatly, therefore the average user will have bad experience with Ubuntu.

I am old enough to remember the growing pains of WFWG 3.0 and the change from 16-bit to 32-bit. (My pre Linux days, sorry.) And the upgrade to WFWG 3.1 and then WFWG 3.11. Wow! We thought we really had a hot rod computer in those days. (A 386dx running at 33Mhz w/8Mb of RAM and an 80Mb HD.)

Then I found a Pentium 75Mhz old computer at a garage sale. Took it home, loaded RH 7.0. Liked Linux immediately. Upgraded to RH 7.2, liked it. Then upgraded to RH 7.3. RH had "improved" some of the software and various "things" configured differently. I thought that that was a pain in the behind, but we lived and learned. Then came RH 8.0. At this upgrade I felt disappointed. Of course, I now know that I was still learning.

Point of this is, all transitions require newly learned skills. Life is acquiring new skills. I have always taught my kids this fact: Life is about acquiring new skills and the first time you do it, it takes longer than the second time around. And then the third gets even quicker and easier.

I tried Ubuntu 8.10 64bit and had issues with learning different configurations. Re-installed 8.10 32bit after two or three days. It was just over my head and I did not have the time to find all the fixes.

I am currently running Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. Yep, I had an issue in the beginning with Flash, but that works now and this version (lucid) is MUCH, MUCH better than 8.10 was.

I have been using 64 bit Ubuntu without any problems. Flash, Google Earth, Eclipse, Skype whatever. Codecs fine. Actually I was puzzled by the recommendation on the Ubuntu site. True, not much of a performance difference and the 32 bit is probably the easier install. Maybe a list of known issues for 64 bit might be better.

you people really need to get your heads out of your arses. 64 bit ubuntu works perfect. the native 64bit flash plugin (10.0.45.2) works great and my machine has never been faster or more stable. you can use 32bit apps in 64bit if needed, but not the other way around. so what have you got to lose?

but if you want performance use 64bit
(Intrepid was ok - but Karmic & Lucid works so much better)

karmic (9.10) version comparison
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_32_pae&num=1

And one more thing...

Sun Java does not run on Ubuntu 84 bit. It likes on Red Hat Linux. Grrrr

I have been using Ubuntu v8.1 Intrepid 64 bit for over a year and half now.

While bulk of things run fine, there are quite a few blips of the radar too.

1. Flash - a major pain in getting the right version of the installer n get it running too. Word of caution - If on your sys , you get one of those installers running, NEVER mess with it like upgrade etc. The only time you should knock it off is when you reformat the drive or install a new version of ubuntu. Adobe also haven't been very kind to Linux 64 bit guys either.

2. Firefox - Somebody posted his wife's experience on FF. Completely agree. V 3.5 used to hog resources and freezes up the screen to the point of frustration and like her I too have about 20 tabs open at any given point in time. The solution - Moved from FF to Opera and now finally happy as a lark with Chrome. Chrome has been rock solid and easy on my resources.

3. Many an app don't run the installers citing wrong version or not suitable for this version of OS. This, despite the download site mentioning it is for Linux AMD64 versions. Dunno, if it is Ubuntu messing up of the package missing some symbols in its compilation. But it does become a pain at times and frustrating to deal with it.

Otherwise, it has been rock solid. No issues with the codecs also. I also ran the v10 also and found it much more solid and complete. If only they can find a suitable solution to reliably exchange documents between Office 2007 and Oo etc, then I can safely bid adieu to my windows partition!.

It's kinda hard NOT to find myself apolgizing for Ubuntu when the latest release blacklisted my laptop. Still no solution in sight. "Just works" is a great idea,.... as long as it does just work.

64 bit Linux's use of the wrapper is for many people a very good reason to use 32 bit Linux instead. I notice absolutely no difference between using 64 bit and 32 bit (and I've spent a lot of time using 64 bit); the PAE kernel works fine, and the Ubuntu installer enables it by default on systems with 4 gigs of ram or more. I recently installed 64 bit Ubuntu on my wife's computer, and she complained non-stop about how Linux sucks because Firefox cannot properly display webpages. (My wife likes to open 30 to 40 Firefox tabs at once and leave them running for days on end; eventually the wrapper crashes on her and there is no way in hell I could convince her to alter her web browser behavior, nor should she have to.) I reinstalled Ubuntu on her computer with the 32 bit, and all of her problems went away. (There are additional 64 bit problems with Flash and various video codecs, but they aren't as important as the wrapper problem.) There really is no good reason to encourage people to use 64 bit Linux and doing so runs the risk of making Linux look bad to new users. I would say that there is generally too much conversation within the Linux community about how to make desktop Linux "sexy" and nowhere near enough conversation about how to make it "stable."

"Now when johnny noob downloads 64 bit because his awesome gamer-dood computer MUST be utilized to its full potential, and comes complaining that flash, NVidia drivers, etc. don't work; someone can at least point out that 32 bit is recommended."

Flash normally works if installed the supported way (the flash installer package in the repository) and there are 64 bit nVidia drivers, so when it comes to those, why would it be pointed out that the 32 bit version of the distro is recommended?

Later, Seeker

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-website-content/+bug/585940

amd64 version support was the reason to switch to linux for me.
i use the 32bit version on machines amd64 incapable
but have used 64bit on all machines that could run it.
Not suitable for daily desktop use i wish they had told me that 5 years ago
Now how do i update

I think you misunderstood this. The recommendation for 32 bit is, IMHO, a question of CYA, not an apology. It's not just flash, it's video drivers and other third-party apps that don't work. Take note that the situation still isn't much different for Windows.

Now when johnny noob downloads 64 bit because his awesome gamer-dood computer MUST be utilized to its full potential, and comes complaining that flash, NVidia drivers, etc. don't work; someone can at least point out that 32 bit is recommended.

As for all the Ubuntu-sux-because-it-gets-more-press-than-my-distro people, unless your distro has magically sorted all the 64-bit incompatibilities with 3rd-party proprietary software and drivers, I suggest you get over it.

"No 64 bit Lightning calendar for Thunderbird
No 64 bit Cirtix client"

Simple fact I have both of those working on a 64 bit system with a 64 bit kernel.

The issue is that there are two sets of 32 bit packages instead of one still. Ie one for 32 bit usage one for 64 bit usage.

The ones for 64 big usage are not as broad as required.

I end up running a chroot containing 32 bit version of the distribution I am running so I could run the odd applications that were not operational with 64 bit distribution provided 32 bit libs.

Yes about time we stop roping Linux in with sorry sorry sorry. Instead hey distributions pick up you game and merge the 32 bit correct into the 64 bit. The Linux kernel supports it why don't you. Also merging 32 bit and 64 bit correct will save many TB on Distrobution mirror sites hosting many distributions.

If the text next to the 64 bit button does change to say "some flash issues may result" it should also include:
No 64 bit Lightning calendar for Thunderbird
No 64 bit Cirtix client

I am sure there are more...

Kind of sorry I selected 64 bit this time without checking 64 bit app availability better.

The problem isn't GNU/Linux. The problem is Ubuntu. I wish the media never canonize it as they've done and make it the representation of GNU/Linux that most of the world sees.

Damned kids. get off my lawn!

I have been using a 64 Bit Mandriva for three years now and it does all I need. Flash works just fine.

I think you'll find the real reason for not recommending it is that if something goes wrong, or something requires command line, the user is probably just going to forget about it and return to what they're familiar with, and tell all their friends about the possibly quite insignificant issue to you or I, so probably won't just lose one potential user, but might be talking more like a dozen. Or if they're persistent, will place a burden on the support system (that the support volunteers will get thoroughly p***ed off about having to answer a thousand times a day) that can be avoided easily enough. I'd probably put the same warning up myself. I love the command line. I've run Arch for several years, so well versed with much that goes on under the hood. But not everyone is as patient or determined to work through issues as those of us in here are.

@Aeiluindae

I installed 32bit ubuntu desktop yesterday on a machine for my gf (this is my first time installing 32bit ubuntu).
I actually saw pae in the grub menu item, it is by default already?

The fundamental problem is a matter of standards and what a community deems as acceptable. Look at 'current' versus 'stable' versus 'legacy.' Whatever the flavor, you know that, if you're running current, you'll get warnings about the hazards of running something that is still being shaken down. I have never, ever seen a Windows box run as well as one running current flavor of BSD or Linux. Give me an alpha release of Fedora or Ubuntu before even considering getting me to try XPSP2!

Regards,
mc

@littlenoodles: You should realize that you've got your info wrong there.

int == int32, even in 64-bits, and it's accessed as such.
long = int64 in 64-bits, and it's accessed as two ints as far as RAM goes.

Oh, and for the coders out there... void* != int!!! A pointer is a 64-bit entity in this environment, not a 32 bit one and the int doesn't migrate, per ANSI specs, to 64-bits.

The memory's laid out as DWORDs and is little different from what you're used to.

It should be noted before someone comments, that I've been doing 64-bit stuff for a while now, having received a Solo2 motherboard based box back before they released ClawHammer. :-D

Most of the stories about 64-bits being slower and needing more RAM come from the RISC world where they did it the way you're thinking.

RE:Why 64 bits?

There's a few niggles these days (small, really, less than on 64-bit Windows, actually)- and you have native access to the full memory of the machine when you're using 64-bits.

PAE mostly works well, but there's limitations on what it offers to you for memory access and you take a slight performance hit while doing it. With 64-bits, you get the benefits of PAE for 32-bit applications and full access to the memory with 64-bit applications. I'm using PAE on my laptop right now, but if Flash were working a bit better than it does right now, I'd have put 64-bits on it to get at all the memory the "right" way of it.

And that doesn't get into the speed lift you get with many 64-bit applications as your register space doubles. I'm seeing 20-40% increases in overall performance on things like compiles, etc. No, many desktop users won't see this, but when you combine the hit you get with PAE, it's like you're sacrificing 25-45% of peak out of the machine by running in 32-bit mode with 4+ Gb of RAM.

Many people won't need the memory access for now. Many will appreciate the speed boost, though. In the end, there shouldn't be a disclaimer like the Ubuntu site has on it's download page. It's not really very accurate if they'd just put the 32-bit compatibility layer in there as a default install. Yes, you need to warn people there might be an issue with Flash- but not do it the way they're doing it.

The situation with Flash is not a reason to stick with the 32 bit version. Yes Flash has problems, and the wrapper to run the 32 bit flash on 64 bit linux has it's issues but I'm not totally convinced that people actually have more problems with Flash while using the wrapper than without as opposed to having a similar amount of problems just diffferent.

If you need the java browser plug-in that may be a little hit and miss, but I think most people don't care about that.

I'm a little skeptical in regard to the proprietary drivers and not having 64 bit versions of them, while I have no doubt that is the situation for some, I have doubts as to whether it affects enough people in a significant enough way to consider before hand. It's different if you are in the workplace an need a specific piece of hardware to work, but in that case you can ask/google about that specific piece of hardware.

Whether it's Windows 7 or Linux, my answer is the same. If you don't know a reason why you should stick with the 32 bit choose the 64 bit.

Later, Seeker

...because it needs it.

For most users 64 bit code simply means that integer data takes twice as much memory. If you don't need to address 4GB or more of memory, you get no real advantage. I think 64-bit Windows may have some additional security features, but that's not an issue with Linux.

Maybe there's some speed advantage to the 64-bit instruction set (more registers or something). But when I got my present 64-bit machine, I saw an immediate speed boost in 32-bit linux. So the 64 bit memory bus probably accounts for a big part of the speed advantage.

Try other distro, linux is not tied to Ubuntu. Linux go far beyond Ubuntu. There are more distros that support 64 bits, like Mandriva, Fedora, OpenSuse, Slackware, etc. But If you ask me, i will recommend Slackware64., but the persons should go and try to check what distro suits their needs.

C'mon, loose the fear and try different distros, and you will be satisfied with the results. =)

My concern with recommending the 32-bit version by default is that people won't have access to all their RAM. If you've got 4GB of RAM, and then a half-decent graphics card (a typical setup on many new consumer laptops, desktops often have even more RAM and a better graphics card), you won't be able to access all your RAM in 32-bit Ubuntu. I know because I've tried. The 32-bit Ubuntu desktop CD doesn't have PAE enabled in the kernel. Admittedly, you probably won't need that RAM in Ubuntu unless you're running really heavy stuff (not like windows where you lose 1/3 of your RAM to the OS, and another quarter to your antivirus and web browser) but having it accessible is nice, and makes the user happier. What they should do is enable PAE in the default 32-bit Ubuntu install and then the memory issue wouldn't be as annoying.

come on over to Slackware we have 64 bit everything
"and it blows the doors off 32 bit"

Sure, 64 bits works. For the most part. Flash has issues. Or getting binaries from mozilla or OpenOffice has issues. Or drivers that are made available from 3rd party vendors have issues.

For new users, recommending 64 bit to them is adding a complexity factor. The same is true for windows btw. I had serious hair-tearing problems trying to get a sound driver for my work laptop.

Apart from the fact that 64 bit has more niggles than 32 bits. WHY do you want 64 bits? Simply because you have a 64 bit CPU? Do you drive faster than you should in a car that has more horsepower? 64 bits is overrated. With a PAE enabled kernel you can use all the RAM you have, and you work just as fast. Unless you are a heavy video editor, or a music technician, or host a huge corporate database, 64 bit will not give you any noticeable speed improvement.

I've been to that site at least 50 times over the years, I just look at 64 bit and download... never read the actual text right next to it.

Your post is right on the money.

I have 5 year old Dell and I was hestant but I loaded 64-bit Ubuntu on it AND I LOVE IT !!! IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE A NEW COMPUTER. Sure, sure ... most apps are not 64-bit .... but a semi-nerd like me can FEEL that the machine is more peppier is certain ways AND I LOVE IT.

NO PROBLEMS running 64-bit for me ..... I finally made the leap when I realized I couldn't find any 64-bit complaints AFTER 2008. : )

I use 32 bit versions with a PAE kernel. When all the apps I use can run on 64 bit natively, I'll switch to 64. Until then, I'm quite satisfied with the performance of 32 bit.

However, there's always a bit of initial fun involved with a 64-bit install right at the moment.

First, you DO mention the biggie, up-front. I honestly wish Flash was gone or that someone came up with an adequate answer for it so we'd quit waiting and waiting for Adobe to fix their broken stuff.

However, there is a distinction that probably needs to be removed for Ubuntu Desktop and a few others...for the desktop story of things. As a default configuration, pretty much every distribution installs a 64-bit pure configuration. There is no compatibility layer code installed for 32-bit Linux. As a result, I've had to educate newbies and "old pros" alike on installing their compatibility libraries just to be able to play the game I ported over to Linux. The same requirements go for any game from Runesoft, LGP, or other porting interests- as well as a whole host of proprietary Linux applications and to some extent WINE itself. In the end, there's a bit of a gotcha for the average desktop user that they are warning people from, mainly because they're not provisioning the installs right out of box, mostly to cater to the hardcore crowd that want nothing but 64-bit pure systems. While hopefully very shortly Elecorn and Data Realms will be shipping 64-bit titles (yes...), not everyone will be willing (or able...there's some pretty natty stuff that's not 64-bit pure out there in the game industry...) to release 64-bit versions of their stuff.

Here's the thing. Flash tends to be a LOT of what people use the internet for. And even if not, it would be a lot of what people who don't know the difference between 32 and 64-bit would use the Internet for. This is a tricky one. It's not cannonical's fault that flash-64 got dropped on linux, but chances are anyone who's not brave enough to do the 64-bit after the warning won't need all 4GB of ram anyways

the reason I went with it on my 64 bit box was memory... what good is 8gb installed if you can't even use half of it? sure not many apps are up to speed with 64 bit or even dual or quad core for that matter. its a lotta work to do this right and most don't bother. but by upping the ram capability whatever you run is gonna do its thing a lot better if your ram usage would otherwise be maxed out. I think its all about usage. if one has a lotta stuff open thats memory intensive one would want that extra address space on board that 64 bit provides. sure.. an SDD helps. but there ain't no substitute for RAM (and a quick CPU cycle).

64 bit Linux works perfectly fine.

Another form of 'apologizing' that bugs me are all the reviews that have some concession to the effect that "this is really great for old, slow machines".

Stop that!

It is even better on new, fast ones, just like every other op system. The 'just the crumbs for me' attitude is silly.

I don't understand. Couldn't that be re-phrased to something like:
32bit - for most users, works on all systems
64bit - for those users who know they a 64bit computer

There may not be a plethora of apps designed to take advantage of the 64bit CPU, but the ability to utilize over 4GB of system memory can be leveraged by almost any heavy application (video editing/rendering, running multiple VM's, etc)

A lot of games and apps still aren't compiled for 64bit and mean mean having to do things like chroot or installing extra libraries. The Ubuntu page you show is for newbies who aren't quite sure which version they need so play it safe and push them to 32bit. Power users and geeks know enough to make their own decision.

32 bit plugins in a 64 bit browser work much worse on Windows 7 then on Ubuntu. That's true for flash as well as Adobe reader plugins.

I was also shocked by the "not recommended for desktop use" statement. Especially when all laptops today come with 4GB.

Does 32bit Ubuntu work on a 64bit processor? Yes.
Does 64bit Ubuntu work on a 32bit processor? No.
Does the webpage know which processor the user has? No.
Recommend the 32bit version. It'll work.

If your processor is 64-bit capable, there is no valid reason whatsoever not to install 64-bit Ubuntu. In fact, I considered test driving PCLinuxOS but the deal breaker was that there is no 64-bit version. I am with you, man. They need to edit out that silly warning.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_32_pae&num=1

So what if most people don't take advantage of 64 bit applications, that's no need to make it look like 64 bit Linux is somehow not good enough.

But the statement is true. Very few people run the aps that take advantage of a 64-bit processor. Read up about it.