Pardon my ignorance, but I've been thinking of getting the 64 bit version of OpenSuse. Now, here are my questions:

1. I have an AMD Athelon 64. Is that a 64 bit computer?
2. Will I see any sort of boost on speed and performance if I go to 64 bit?
3. What about applications? Will they stay the same, improve, or worsen?

I know the first is obvious, but I've never done anything with 64 bit so I'm a newbie on that (and a lot of other things, as well)

Pueblo, I'm not an expert, but I recently upgrade to an AMD Athlon 64 and had these same questions. Before I did the deed I found the answers as reported by others. So some of what follows is "hear-say", and some is first-hand reporting. I'll try to be clear which is which.

First, yes, the AMD Athlon 64 is a true 64 bit processor. It is capable of running 64 bit instructions, but can also run the 32 bit instruction set with only a small degradation in performance. That means that you can load up the 32 bit version of your OS and run it. I did just that with Mandriva 2007 Free. I hear reported that the difference in speed experienced between the 64 bit version and the 32 bit version is negligible. You won't notice.

If you were to run 64 bit applications on a 64 bit machine, yes, it would probably be faster than 32 bit applications on a 32 bit machine that is otherwise identical. The difference is reported to be not as great as the difference we all saw when upgrading in the mid '90s from 16 bit machines to 32 bit machines. Most say that it's not worth the effort to upgrade if that is your only reason, but most people upgrade to 64 bit machines for other reasons and get the marginal performance boost in the bargin.

Your last question about the applications is a good one. Currently not all applications offer 64 bit versions. There is a complication with apps. like Firefox, which do offer a 64 bit version, but then must use 64 bit versions of plug-ins, which often don't exist, yet (most notoriously, there is no 64 bit version of the adobe flash plug-in yet). Until those gaps are filled (and boy it seems to come slowly) you'll probably find that there are some things you just can't do that you use to be able to do.

The situation is improving (always improving...) but slowly.

My impression is that most are upgrading the hardware, but sticking with the 32 bit OSs and applications for now.

Well, I confirm everything written in the previous post. Performance boost is minimal and there's lot of problems with firefox (java plugin, flash plugin, mplayer-plugin). Also there are problems with ATI drivers (at least I am unable to install them).

Well, thanks. I don't think I'll bother then, at least until it's really worth it in terms of performance.

I use the 64bit version of suse 10.2 and have had no problems. Many people take the same view as the previous posters and there is only really a noticeable speed boost - with a 64 bit o/s -with heavy duty things (like video or graphic work).