gentoo or ubuntu / x86_64 or i386
 

Hi,

I have fairly good knowledge of working with linux. I have been using linux for 3 years now. All this time i was using Fedora on a pentium III m/c (unicore, no 64 bit). Now i got bored of fedora, aside that i also wanted to learn more on coding. Now i have a new pc, thats AMD64 Athlon X2. Since i am not a linux guru, i now have dual boot linux with windows (so that i can fall back to windows if something goes terribly wrong). Now, since this AMD64 can run both 32 & 64 bit apps, which distro option should i choose 32bit OS or 64 bit OS. If i choose 32 bit i loose the advantage of having 64-bit. If i choose 64 bit then i had to loose certain important app like flash plugin for firefox. I heard 32 bit has a larger repository of apps than for a 64 bit. I also need win codecs to play my mp3's, which i heard is not available in 64-bit.
Now i have narrowed to 2 distro which i consider for the switch from fedora. It can be ubuntu, so i can concentrate on LAMP stack coding & JBOSS J2EE coding & then have eye candy like XGL/Aiglx compiz effects without the need to spend hours compiling & installing X . I work most of the time with X server (though i feel comfortable working on cmd line, X seems better since you have console in X) . But then i would miss-out lots learning that can happen with gentoo. This is a big plus on the gentoo side. But i dont have the patience to wait for hours for GNOME or KDE app compilation & installations. I want it fast like with the binaries, but for certains apps from the source, so that i can learn to tweek. But compiling from the src., breaks the package management system.

:Pengy:

regards,
ashwin_cse

I think you gave yourself the answer already: Ubuntu 32 bit. The only thing that you might not yet have thought of is creating your own packages, which then would not break dpkg. And it involves some fun learning too.

I use Gentoo 64bit and the only thing I can't do is.....well, ummm..... I don't guess there is anything I can't do. I use flash with 64 bit firefox (nspluginwrapper), and I don't have a problem with java.

I listen to mp3's, watch movies, etc... So far there is nothing I have found that doesn't work like I want it to.

I use Gentoo amd64 on a Core 2 Duo Processor.