[ale] 64-bit vs 32-bit?

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Thu, 2011-03-31 at 07:32 -0400, Pete Hardie wrote:
> What are the pros/cons of this?  I'm only aware of certain issues with
> specific programs (Firefox, frrex) having different bugs in the 64-bit
> version than the 32-bit. 

Most 64-bit specific problems have been resolved.  You can now pretty
easily run Flash on 64-bit systems, and there is a native 64-bit Java
plugin.  Of course, if you _do_ have issues, you can always install a
32-bit browser and use 32-bit plugins for it.

There have been assorted problems in the past such as memory leaks that
were specific to 64-bit builds, but as far as I can tell those are
mostly fixed.  I cannot speak to Fedora, but insofar as upstream is
concerned, they've been pretty good about it (especially when upstream
is concerned about portability).

I generally recommend 64-bit OS on 64-bit CPU these days.  If you have
more than 4 GB of RAM, you should *definitely* be running a 64-bit
system, because only with a 64-bit OS can an individual process have
more than 3 GB of RAM mapped into its address space (which might be
important if you need to do that... I know I have on more than one
occasion).

	--- Mike