I am planning to buy a new desktop which will run Linux. What are the 64 bit options in Linux?
Is it beneficial to install 64 bit OS or stick with 32 bit OS. Are there 64 bit versions of open office, kaffeine and firefox? Would it be a mistake to jump to 64 bit computing this early?

Waiting for your help.
aytida.xavierite

Why do you have a desire to move to 64bit? Typically you only see a benefit if you have greater than 4GB of memory, and then it's still questionable until you get significantly higher than that. If your only reason is that you view 64bit as "the future" and don't have a desire to be obsolete, I would instead stay with 32bit until the rest of the world starts using 8-12GB of RAM regularly. As it is, I think most of us are still well below that mark. I personally run 2-4GB in all of my systems and do no see any marked improvement in my systems running 64bit.

Also, I'll move this to the Distro section.

-Chad

Thanks for your advice.It echoed my thoughts.I still feel like sticking to 32 bit OS but just thought to check out the other option. Anyways, are there enough applications written for 64 bit environment so that day to day work runs seamlessly?
aytida.xavierite

My position ... If you're going to reinstall anyway, go to 64-bit ... you don't lose anything. I wouldn't upgrade for no reason, though ... unless you just like the learning experience.

I'm using 64-bit and it seems to be problem free for me.

I don't know if there is any strong reason for an ordinary user of 64 bit hardware to install a 64-bit kernel. But I'm also pretty sure there isn't any strong reason not to.

So far as I understand and have experienced, pre-built 32-bit executables (typically from sources other than your distribution repositories) work fine with a 64-bit kernel. Of course I get most pre-built executables from the distribution repositories and they are 64 bit.

With most pre-built executables from odd sources 32-bit, that seems to give no advantage to either 32-bit or 64-bit kernels. Someday, more prebuilt executables from odd sources will be 64-bit, which would give a big advantage to the kernel that can run both.

You would think that, using the full 64-bit processing power of a suitable processor, would result in a speed increase, but in truth, it's not as great as you might think, maybe due to other factors such as RAM speed, Disk speed, bus speed, etc etc. You then have a situation where a 32-bit version may be better put together than the 64-bit equivalent, and the speed advantage is gone! Or one distro with 64-bit optional may be more bloated and thus slower than another with 32-bit.

It's also possible to build kernels that support 32-bit code but take advantage of certain 64-bit extensions in the processor, which produce a slightly snappier output to 32-bit distros.

At the end of the day, however, it's best to try different distros, both 32 and 64 bit and see what works best on your machine, you could be surprised.

I tried a 64bit distro when I got my first 64bit capable cpu, I know im a bit of recluse and not with the times. but when I went from 32 to 64 I didnt really notice much difference. I was only running 1.5gig of ram at that time though. the only real problem I had was with flash.