Hello all! I recently purchased a new laptop for school and installed Slackware64 13.1 I love Slackware, don't get me wrong, in ten years of using Linux, it is by far THE BEST distro I've ever used. However, after about a week's worth of use, I'm doubting the "advantages" of using a 64 bit version. Frequent incompatibilities, library headaches, almost no performance difference, the list goes on. In truth, I have no real need for 64 bit, and 32 bit would probably solve most, if not all, of these little headaches. My question is, what is the best way to switch to 32-bit?
Should I just backup, format and re-install using the 32-bit version? Would a simple kernel recompile work? If I re-install using 32-bit, should I format first? I'm personally thinking that I should do a "bare metal install" and cut the Gordian knot instead of trying to untie it. Thoughts? Opinions? Advice? The following is the technical specifications of the computer in question. Any and all assistance is appreciated.

Acer Aspire 5538 Notebook

Cpu: AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core @ 1.2 Ghz
RAM: 4GB DDR2
HDD: 320GB/298 GiB

ATI Radeon 3200HD Graphics
ATI RS780 Azalia Sound card
Atheros 928x 802.11 b/g wi-fi

I'm aware that some of this hardware is slightly exotic, but I've had no trouble getting any of it working on Slackware64 13.1 and I don't anticipate any problems with it when I switch to 32-bit, but I have been wrong before.

Thanks in advance!

You may or may not be interested in this, but you could install multilib so that you have 64 and 32 bit support. If you are interested then see: http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/

I've just done the same step because of the same reasons. I don't need 64Bit for playing some music, surfin and writing. And I don't want to do extra steps every time, when an update is on the way...

So I backuped my data and made a fresh install of slackware32 13.1 and now everything is easier for me...

Yeah, that's about what I figured. I looked into multilib and with all due respect to lewisforlife, it just seems like a lot more hassle than it's worth. I'm not doing any hardcore gaming, or maintaining any massive databases, (hell I'll be lucky to fill this hard-drive halfway) so I'm downloading Slackware32 13.1 and I'm just gonna backup, wipe the drive clean, and start from scratch. It seems like the best to go. Plus, I've been told it might actually be faster than the 64-bit version.

As with all things, the answer seems to be that it depends. In this interview with Linux Magazine, Eric Hameleers (AlienBOB) says that Pat V saw, ". . .speed increases between 20 and 40 percent for some of the benchmarks, compared to 32bit Slackware" when developing Slackware 13.

Still, that's not an across-the-board increase if it's only some of the benchmarks.

I've got Slackware 13.1 (32-bit) installed on my old Pentium III laptop and it runs exceptionally well -- including KDE! Do what feels right and good luck!

If you have the space, you could keep your existing 64bit install and add a 32bit install. I do this with my desktop, so that I have a clean 32bit and clean 64 bit (well almost,except for some support libraries for my 32bit proprietary printer driver).
I find that the 64bit is faster to boot, but I see little difference in actual operation.
It is nice to be able to easily recover from a silly configuration stuffup if one install will not boot. It also makes backups straight forward.

A downside is that you spend more time and bandwidth when updating packages.

There's your main sticking point. You will not be able to use all 4GB running a 32-bit OS. You can compile a custom kernel on 32-bit Slackware to enable PAE, but that is kludgy and does add some overhead. Going multilib means you get the benefit of running 32-bit applications while still being able to use all 4GB of RAM. If you're happy with around 3GB then go ahead and go 32-bit (or if you feel like delving into the world of memory paging...some defend it, I see it as pointless and a waste of resources).

I too am having similar issues - I make my slackware multilib ready following aliens guide and just get my ball sack kicked again and again; but it works none the less. I too have 32bit slackware a thought but came to the reality of things taking into consideration RAM and speed differences.

you realize this is 9 years old thread?

Is anyone running -current 32bit on 64bit hardware? I'm curious what the benefits are these days... Multilib works pretty well IMO

About the only reasons to choose 32-bit over 64-bit are:

You have 32-bit binaries that you need to run and you don't want to do multilib for whatever reasons you have for that.

You are working with machine that has a very limited amount to physical memory installed. Less than 4GB at most maybe even a lower threshold than that. 64-bit applications will use a little more RAM but this should not be concern on most semi-current hardware.

Otherwise 64-bit code will run FASTER; the gains in additional registers will almost certainly drive the bottom line performance more than any other factor. You will also have binaries that take advantage of a lot of additional instruction set which should also yield at least modest gains.