64-bit advice

[BloodiedFangs]

i hope i'm putting this in the right place. i apologise ahead of time if its not

alright, laying down the facts. i'm very new to linux. i installed it almost year ago now, but i haven't been in a position to use my pc (localities and all that), so unfortunately despite the time period i haven't had time to sharpen my ability to use this OS

now, the version i installed was 64-bit kubuntu 7.04. i forget the name of the distro. however, i want to do a clean re-install of kubuntu 7.10, wipe 7.04 off. its simply because i don't want to go through the update process, and i have no valuable files in my kubuntu partition.

now, my simple question is whether or not i should use 64-bit. i like the idea of an OS that can actually more of the potential of my system. however, i'm a little worried about software incompatibilities. i do have the patience to resolve most, as long as they don't have too complex a solution (i need this PC to be functioning. if i have to spend as much time working to keep it doing what i need it to as i spend actually doing my work on it, then to be honest, its no good to me. for the mean-time at least. for the next six months, time will be at a premium). i know i had some issues with 7.04 with getting the nvidia drivers to work with my pci-x 6600gt. and yes, i was using the appropriate set of drivers. i want the new version to function well with my video card, without having to fight with it too much. although it may help that i now have a newer card.

additionally, i will be probably doing a lot of rendering with blender. will 64-bit give a noticeable increase in efficiency with this task? (which will most likely be the most processor intensive task i'll be making it do)

and just in case it matters, my current system is

socket 939 3700+ (although this should be an opteron 180 before i install the new version)
2 gb of ram
xfx 8600gts xxx

that should be the most relevant info for my system.

any opinions?

thanks

[Snowhog]

Re: 64-bit advice

Well, the simplest approach here, would to download/burn several LiveCDs so you can test each and see how compatible your system is "as seen by the LiveCD."

[dibl]

Re: 64-bit advice

I've been running 64-bit exclusively for over a year now. I would say you probably will get better performance with blender, depending on the degree to which it is designed to take advantage of the 64-bit architecture. You certainly won't get any worse performance.

I'd recommend you try Kubuntu 8,04 since it is now released, rather than 7.10 -- 8.04 is a long term support release and I've heard no reports of bugs attributable to the 64-bit architecture.

People have 2 kinds of problems directly caused by the 64-bit Linux architecture:

(1) Imagined -- that's 99.5% of them.

(2) Java-related and flash-related -- mostly overtaken by better recent browser plugins, but there are still some residual issues in this domain.

Blender ver. 2.45-4 is in the 64-bit repo -- I just checked.

[BloodiedFangs]

Re: 64-bit advice

Well, the simplest approach here, would to download/burn several LiveCDs so you can test each and see how compatible your system is "as seen by the LiveCD."

the problem there is that when i tried a liveCD last time, i couldn't get internet access...in fact, i found my liveCD experience wholly unsatisfying. the only reason i went ahead and installed kubuntu after that was that i was still intrigued and the liveCD did little to quell my curiosity. i know i'm getting a little on a tangent here, but my point is that fooling around with liveCD's again is about the last thing i want to be doing

and you're right...i probably should try 8.04...i keep thinking that 7.10 will be a more complete but slightly outdated release than 8.04...but that's not right. i just keep forgetting linux is different. thanks for the input, folks . i think i'll be taking 8.04 64-bit.