Gutsy!

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Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I spent yesterday afternoon upgrading my operating system. Three times; Ubuntu requires that you upgrade to each release in turn. So a few hours and three reboots later I am on the latest version of Ubuntu and all my installed applications. The only downside seems to be I caught the iowait bug, but it doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment. My email is still working and denying relay attempts, which is the only customisation I care about.

Now if only Ubuntu would let me easily use 32-bit Firefox, Adobe issued an AMD64 flash player or there was an open-source alternative that worked, I would be happy.

Trophy Videos · Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 2:30 pm

Did you trash Windoze forever? Are you a Linux noob like me?
That's quite a gutsy leap, if true, thud. I've been playing with Puppy Linux for awhile, but haven't trashed my working fine XP yet. I have some software that I don't want to become trash yet, and haven't installed Wine on the custom puppy I'm using. It seems baiting is my first hobbie, at least till Trout Season!!

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Nah. I've been on Linux for almost ten years now. This was just an upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another, via two intermediate ones.

Unless you use some very niche programs or games, there's nothing you need Windows for. Even the free software is cheaper, because on Windows it's almost invariabley crippled shareware or adware and on Linux it really is free.

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:57 pm

The latest Flash-plugin also works in the 64-bit version of Firefox.
I'm running Fedora 8 64-bit and can use Flash in Firefox without having to start the 32-bit version (as I had to do previously).

I think this should apply to all versions of the plugin. Previously I always used the .tar.gz-archive, then the RPM, and now I get it through yum, by installing an RPM that adds the Adobe-repository to my repo-list.

Seems you're pretty much doing it like I do it. I started using Linux nearly 9 years ago and I am happy with it. Windows is only still on my disk for a few games I still like to play.

And when people come with niche programs as argument for Windows, I only mention XEphem in return...

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:55 pm

Thud

Any particular reason why you used the 64 bit version of gutsy? I ask because many users don't seem to to any real advantages over the 32 bit version ( and of course Firefox and Flash work fine in that version) Laughing

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:06 am

Well, I'm not thud, but I also would like to share my opinion on this:
I use the 64-bit version of Fedora simply because it's the right one for my system.
There are advantages, these are not very big, but they are there. One outstanding example would be memory-management. A 32-bit system cannot address a full GB of memory. There is a kernel-option that somehow tweaks some things to have the possibility to address a lot of RAM, but it does include a little performance-tradeoff. A 64-bit system can easily address lots of GBs of memory. So, people like me, who like to have some memory (I have 2GB) are better of with 64-bit.

Also you can easily run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit system, without loss of performance. This is not possible the other way around.
For me this is important because I use KVM for virtualization. I couldn't virtualize a 64-bit system if I would run a 32-bit system, at least not without a significant slowdown. Now I can virtualize 64- and 32-bit systems, without that big slowdown.

The only problem that arises comes from outside sources that deliver non-free stuff, like Flash. But as this also seems to be solved now this problem is obsolete too.

As said, I don't see any disadvantages in using a 64-bit OS, only advantages. Of course the mentioned advantages don't apply to all users, but they are reason enough for me.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Well, actually a 32 bit system can address 4GB of RAM. It's a Linux limitation which means that more than 1GB causes problems. But I have 64 bits, and I still want to use them if possible. I'm stubborn like that.

I also have a problem burning CDs/DVDs. The burner I bought when I built this machine has a fault. Unfortunately its taken a year or two to come to a definite conclusion. So burning an x86 disk was problematic. I've just purchased a replacement, so that problem should go away as well.

Thanks, rootuser. I have now found nspluginwrapper, and have 64bit Firefox running Flash9. Lovely-Jubbley.

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:25 pm

If you have 1GB or more on a 32-bit Linux and don't use that setting (forgot the name, don't play around so much in the kernel-config anymore since I use Fedora...) you'll only have around 900MB available.
It might be a Linux-limitation (didn't read that much about all that memory-management-stuff), so then it would be related on how the memory is addressed. But I think to remember that I have also read something that this limitation actually also is in Windows, but is tackled by a similar "hack" it's done in Linux. I'm not sure about this though.
Anyway, both of my systems, Linux and Windows, are 64-bit, so I don't need to worry anyway.

As you say, you're stubborn about this, so I think am I. I have 64-bit, so why not use them. If I run a 32-bit system I can also run a kernel that only supports one core of my CPU...

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:33 pm

@rootuser- thanks for the explanation. I am more concerned with making sure that all the apps I use regularly work than any small gain in performance ( I really only use the machine for web browsing/email)

As the old saying goes "if it ain't broke- don't fix it!"

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

The explanation is here: http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450