64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

[Bongo5HH]

OK so I'm CONSIDERING trying the 64bit version. But what I've GOT to know is how is it as your daily desktop? I NEED flash and the other restricted things like JAVA to work.

How is it to live with the 64bit HH Kubuntu with KDE4?

thanks,
Kev

[Ptero-4]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

there are tutorials on the internet that explain how to use a chrooted environment to run those 32bit codecs under 64bits ubuntu (should also work on kubuntu).

[Marcb]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

Go through the forums a bit (also the Ubuntu ones). There are plenty of howtos that explain how to get it all going perfectly, also under 64 bit.

Just verify first if something is meant to work under Kubuntu also if you are checking the Ubuntu forums.

I never had any problems with 64 bit. Only difference is that for java I use IcedTea since that officially supports 64 bits without a problem. Unfortunately the version in the repository has a couple of bugs in there, which are fixed in the current version but should be available soon for us as well. (they aren't at this point, I've tried yesterday again, we seem to have to be patient a bit more).

Marc

[3vi1]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

OK so I'm CONSIDERING trying the 64bit version. But what I've GOT to know is how is it as your daily desktop? I NEED flash and the other restricted things like JAVA to work.

I'm running the 64-bit desktop on this machine (and 32-bit on two others).

There is a flashplugin-nonfree package in the 64-bit repos that works fine for flash inside of 64-bit firefox. I've never had need for Java.

Long ago, I had the 32-bit FF installed, I'm sure you could still find a walkthru on how to set that up and get Java working with it. The caveat there is that it wouldn't see things like... oh... my printers.

Unless you have a specific need for the 64-bit version, or, like me - just like to fight with system configuration, I'd suggest sticking with 32-bit.

-J

[Bongo5HH]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

Unless you have a specific need for the 64-bit version, or, like me - just like to fight with system configuration, I'd suggest sticking with 32-bit.

-J

Thank you for this. And the other's comments too!

I do audio work on my system and I'm hoping that going 64 Bit might speed up some of the work. Beside that I don't 'need' it.

Where are my two buddies in Kubuntu-breakage? Fintan and Dibl? I thought for sure I'd hear for you guys on this topic.

**EDITE** I just remembered that Fintan was helping a certain someone with her computer and hoping the updates would take some time... are the updates still going Fintan?

Kev

[dibl]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

OK so I'm CONSIDERING trying the 64bit version. But what I've GOT to know is how is it as your daily desktop? I NEED flash and the other restricted things like JAVA to work.

How is it to live with the 64bit HH Kubuntu with KDE4?

thanks,
Kev

Kev, the short story -- if you really need the Java Run-time Environment (JRE), you'd better stick with 32-bit for now.

Flash works pretty well -- it's not 100% reliable, but mostly it's fine. Sometimes I get a link from someone to a Youtube site or something, and it doesn't work just to click on it, and I end up pasting it into the URL address or something like that. Or even restart Firefox sometimes to get it working again.

There are some proprietary media players that are only 32-bit, like the one at Rhapsody.com and there's one at turnerbroadcasting.com, and those flat out won't play on a 64-bit browser.

Other than those items, I have no problem using 64-bit Kubuntu with full productivity, including multimedia stuff and office stuff. Matter of fact, I've been using it on Hardy Heron for some weeks now with no particular problems. But, the JRE thing is not a problem for me, and if you need it, that's probably a deal killer. If anyone on the Forum knows a viable work-around, maybe they'll share it, but I haven't heard of one that is reliable.

[wmrobins]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

I have a 64 bit (AMD) desktop. And on and off I've tried the 64bit Kubuntu versions. At 7.10, I stayed 64 bit and I'm very happy with it. It seems to work a lot faster and smoother. Hardy should be even better.

If you're concerned, do a dual boot. One 32 and one 64bit. Use a third partition for the bulk of your data and if you decide to go with one or the other nuke the one you don't want and reclaim that space.

wmrobins

[3vi1]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

Just to throw all the options out, you could always install a 32-bit version of Kubuntu in a chroot environment, for those times you need it. I used to do this a few years back, before they worked most of the 64-bit kinks out of Wine and got a good Flash plugin.

Still, I wouldn't expect any really noticable speed increase in your sound apps. I only run 64-bit on this one AMD machine mostly just for the love of writing/testing stuff out on different architectures (the same reason I have Kubuntu installed on my PS3). I also run Seti@home on this box, but I have no data to tell me whether the 64-bit package actually runs any faster.

-J

[wmrobins]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

I have no data to tell me whether the 64-bit package actually runs any faster.

-J

I can see why you wouldn't see much difference 3vi1. You've got a fast box to start with. I'm on the other side of the tracks with a 2800+ Athlon 64 with half a gig of ram. The biggest difference I see is working with video. I also see a big difference importing and saving in Audacity. Overall on on time consuming jobs I'd say cuts a 10 min job to 7 minutes.

wmrobins

[3vi1]

Re: 64 Bit version as your daily desktop?

That's interesting information.

The box I actually run 64-bit on uses an AMD64 XP 4400+ dual-core processor, 2GB RAM (was 4GB, but two sticks went bad ), nVidia 7600GT/256MB vid... but still, yeah, it's relatively fast. So, from a user experience I don't see a huge difference... though it seemed to me that Seti was processing a bit faster (wish I'd noted average uploads on my prior system).