Dual Boot Ubuntu 32 / 64 Bit

[thaimite]

Currently I am running Ubuntu 32 bit with my /home on a separate partition.

My laptop is an Intel i7 processor with 4GB RAM (I will upgrade if 64bit works OK)

I am now wondering if I would have been better installing the 64 bit version of Ubuntu, and reading the Ubuntu forums there seems to be many pros and cons to this decision, however most of the forum posts seem to be several years old and refer to older versions and I am hoping many of the compatibility issues discussed have now been solved..

Therefore I would like to know if it is possible to install Ubuntu 64 on a separate partition, but to have it share my existing home partition so as I can see the issues for myself with the software I use.

If I was to do this what is the risk (if any) of my data getting corrupted overtime by the different applications that will be accessing it (32/64 bit Apps).

Some people also recommend installing / Enabling PAE as an alternative, although if I can dual boot with the same home drive I would rather try that first. Has anybody here experience of PAE extensions?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[siamect]

I have been running both 32 and 64 bit Ubuntu and I cannot see any problems with the 64 bit nor with the 32 bit.

Unless you have a specific reason to wanting booth, I would recommend you to stay with one...

I don't know if for example the email clients 64 and 32 bit are from the exactly same versions and there may be differences in the storage, but I do not have any facts here,just a feeling...

I would go for 64bit and stay there, I run 32bit on an old laptop with 32bit processor and 64 bit on everything else...

64 bit is the future...

Martin

[thaimite]

I have been running both 32 and 64 bit Ubuntu and I cannot see any problems with the 64 bit nor with the 32 bit.

Unless you have a specific reason to wanting booth, I would recommend you to stay with one...

I don't know if for example the email clients 64 and 32 bit are from the exactly same versions and there may be differences in the storage, but I do not have any facts here,just a feeling...

I would go for 64bit and stay there, I run 32bit on an old laptop with 32bit processor and 64 bit on everything else...

64 bit is the future...

Martin

Thanks

I agree 64 bit is the future hence the desire to change.

I don't have much i the way of special software and of course I will back up my home partition before installing.

I use Thunderbird for email, I also use VMware for some windoze stuff. Handbrake for DVD ripping and Libre Office. (I have ditched OO already!!) is my other main application at the moment.

The one thing I believe I will have trouble with is Flight gear but there seems to be plenty of tutorials on the web as to how to solve that issue, so I look forward to the learning experience

[siamect]

... and Libre Office. (I have ditched OO already!!) is my other main application at the moment.

Good idea, I wondered why I have to look at this stupid Oracle logo every time I start OO.

I was not aware of this project and this gives hope for the future.

Hopefully most distros will make LibreOffice the standard office pack in the future.

Do you know if there Is there anything going on to do the same with MySQL yet?

Martin

[siamect]

... and Libre Office. (I have ditched OO already!!) is my other main application at the moment.

Good idea, I wondered why I have to look at this stupid Oracle logo every time I start OO.

I was not aware of this project and this gives hope for the future.

Hopefully most distros will make LibreOffice the standard office pack in the future.

Do you know if there Is there anything going on to do the same with MySQL yet?

Martin

Found it: http://www.skysql.com/en/company/overview

[urandom]

another possibility, if you want to get the best of both worlds (let's face it, 32 bit userland is way better for the desktop ATM - think flash, skype, google earth, wine, etc.. - ) is to use a 64bit kernel on 32bit userland, i've been doing this for years without any issue (PAE has some performance impact so I would not recommend it). it becomes a bit more complicated only if you have out of tree modules like proprietary nvidia drivers and so on but it's still possible to do it anyway. vmware may be one those too (anyway, with an i7 cpu, you could use kvm which is in-kernel as well)

edit/ typos

[BugJackBaron]

another possibility, if you want to get the best of both worlds (let's face it, 32 bit userland is way better for the desktop ATM - think flash, skype, google earth, wine, etc.. - ) is to use a 64bit kernel on 32bit userland, i've been doing this for years without any issue (PAE has some performance impact so I would not recommend it). it becomes a bit more complicated only if you have out of tree modules like proprietary nvidia drivers and so on but it's still possible to do it anyway. vmware may be one those too (anyway, with an i7 cpu, you could use kvm which is in-kernel as well)

edit/ typos

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree about 32 bit being better. That was certainly true five years ago and many people seem never

to check if the situation has improved. Well, it has. Flash, google earth, wine, skype(the last holdout) , java all are running in my

Lucid Lynx 64 bit Ubuntu with no problems.

Indeed I find that java (sun java) works better than the 32 bit version which always crashes on me(after certain apps are open for long periods)

It seems to be a persistent myth that 64 bit is not ready but if you search the forums you will find that most complaints date from many years ago.

There is no reason not to use 64 bit and some good ones to use it.(more than 4GB , faster for some operations, more stable)

So enjoy your 64 bit linux today!

(Finally if there is some application that is only 32 it you have the option of using compatibility layer libs or compiling from source )

[urandom]

another possibility, if you want to get the best of both worlds (let's face it, 32 bit userland is way better for the desktop ATM - think flash, skype, google earth, wine, etc.. - ) is to use a 64bit kernel on 32bit userland, i've been doing this for years without any issue (PAE has some performance impact so I would not recommend it). it becomes a bit more complicated only if you have out of tree modules like proprietary nvidia drivers and so on but it's still possible to do it anyway. vmware may be one those too (anyway, with an i7 cpu, you could use kvm which is in-kernel as well)

edit/ typos

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree about 32 bit being better. That was certainly true five years ago and many people seem never

to check if the situation has improved.

*ahem*

Well, it has. Flash, google earth, wine, skype(the last holdout) , java all are running in my

Lucid Lynx 64 bit Ubuntu with no problems.

there is *no* native version of skype or google-earth for 64bit. there is a 64bit wine which is highly experimental and that basically doesn't work. As far as flash is concerned, there is a pre-release available. What happened when the previous 64bit alpha release has been hit by a serious security flaw? Nothing, adobe just dropped the support for 64bit until the new square release. So you had few choices, using vulnerable software, going back to 32bit+wrapper or using one the non-working FOSS alternatives. What you are using to run all those apps is just multilibs which add more bloat, complexity and is just a hack.

[BugJackBaron]

another possibility, if you want to get the best of both worlds (let's face it, 32 bit userland is way better for the desktop ATM - think flash, skype, google earth, wine, etc.. - ) is to use a 64bit kernel on 32bit userland, i've been doing this for years without any issue (PAE has some performance impact so I would not recommend it). it becomes a bit more complicated only if you have out of tree modules like proprietary nvidia drivers and so on but it's still possible to do it anyway. vmware may be one those too (anyway, with an i7 cpu, you could use kvm which is in-kernel as well)

edit/ typos

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree about 32 bit being better. That was certainly true five years ago and many people seem never

to check if the situation has improved.

*ahem*

Well, it has. Flash, google earth, wine, skype(the last holdout) , java all are running in my

Lucid Lynx 64 bit Ubuntu with no problems.

there is *no* native version of skype or google-earth for 64bit. there is a 64bit wine which is highly experimental and that basically doesn't work. As far as flash is concerned, there is a pre-release available. What happened when the previous 64bit alpha release has been hit by a serious security flaw? Nothing, adobe just dropped the support for 64bit until the new square release. So you had few choices, using vulnerable software, going back to 32bit+wrapper or using one the non-working FOSS alternatives. What you are using to run all those apps is just multilibs which add more bloat, complexity and is just a hack.

Sorry but I can show you where ...check mediabuntu for 64 bit google earth. It works FINE! skype is in the repositories now and works ok.

Wine in 64 doesn't work you say?

Sorry but I use it for microsoft office and it works flawlessly. I have also used wine in 32 bit and could detect no difference.

Ubuntu Lucid lynx here. As for them using multilibs well maybe some do and maybe some don't but linking to a seprate lib

while not pretty is hardly a recipe for disaster.

[urandom]

you are not using native 64bit builds. just 32bit ones with multilibs. even the 64bit skype version on skype's website is just the packaged 32bit build+multilib

[BugJackBaron]

you are not using native 64bit builds. just 32bit ones with multilibs. even the 64bit skype version on skype's website is just the packaged 32bit build+multilib

Again, so what?

Do you think google supports buggy software? Their releases are solid, often even in beta.

Wine, Google Earth and Skype seem to be the three main open source applications that are run via 32 bit libs.

In Ubuntu this is all done for you now and the process is transparent. If there are any bugs in them - and all software has some - , they are

linux bugs(or just bugs) and not due to being 64 bit.

Linux in 64 bit has had a bad reputation but that is clearly changing.

Even the popular but conservative distribution PC-LinuxOS is finally getting a 64 bit version due to popular demand.

[urandom]

Again, so what?

so the 64bit desktop is no there yet except if you want to use ugly hacks that double the chance of vulnerabilities when a library is affected and clutter your machine. Also, you mentioned mediabuntu which I guess is an unofficial repo so you better trust those guys and you'd better have some packaging skills if they disappear or do not offer updates quickly in case of security issue.

Do you think google supports buggy software? Their releases are solid, often even in beta.

I really, really do. Their installer is pure crap.

http://www.webupd8.o...untu-linux.html

Wine, Google Earth and Skype seem to be the three main open source applications that are run via 32 bit libs.

not so important but Google earth and skype are *not* open source applications. IIRC skype opensourced the UI at least.

In Ubuntu this is all done for you now and the process is transparent. If there are any bugs in them - and all software has some - , they are

linux bugs(or just bugs) and not due to being 64 bit.

there are, of course, bugs that only hit a specific architecture.

not so long time ago: http://linux.slashdo...4-Bit-Machines.

Not a bug but it also took a long time for 64bit Firefox user to get spidermonkey to be implemented... way after 32bit...

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, I have nothing against 64bit and I even run a 64bit torrentbox/HTPC/SSH server, but no desktop.

Anyway, let's just use what's best for each one of us, thanks to FOSS, it's easy to do.

[dharmabm]

you are not using native 64bit builds. just 32bit ones with multilibs. even the 64bit skype version on skype's website is just the packaged 32bit build+multilib

Again, so what?

Do you think google supports buggy software? Their releases are solid, often even in beta.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(sorry, ROFL)

[dharmabm]

i did a (very) little research about this today, particularly about flashplayer, and it does appear that ubuntu is using the (beta) 64bit flashplayer plugin in their stable repos. not being an ubutu user, i don't really know (or care) what they are doing with the rest of it, but i am still using flashplayer and skype from multilib in the arch repos, which is a pain i admit, but if the arch developers don't trust the adobe beta then i don't either. personally, i am still hoping for an alternative to flash (and praying for the demise of adobe), but regardless i cannot do without skype, so have to deal with the lib32 bloat, and for now there isn't much choice (unless i want to build the package myself, which i am far too lazy to do).

anyway BugJack, why don't you meet us @ soi8 on wednesday, and we can discuss this all in a (relatively) civilized manner? ;>}

peas and carrots,

k

[urandom]

i did a (very) little research about this today, particularly about flashplayer, and it does appear that ubuntu is using the (beta) 64bit flashplayer plugin in their stable repos. not being an ubutu user, i don't really know (or care) what they are doing with the rest of it, but i am still using flashplayer and skype from multilib in the arch repos, which is a pain i admit, but if the arch developers don't trust the adobe beta then i don't either. personally, i am still hoping for an alternative to flash (and praying for the demise of adobe), but regardless i cannot do without skype, so have to deal with the lib32 bloat, and for now there isn't much choice (unless i want to build the package myself, which i am far too lazy to do).

the problem is you can't build them because there's no source available (well, in fact, yes, you can package binaries ), it's all closed (except for the 64bit wine port which is too experimental/broken ATM). however, you do have another solution which is cleaner but not as well supported as the multilib repo so it requires more sweat and time, that would be creating a 32bit chroot inside your 64bit install and run binaries from there. anyway, i was a bit exaggerating in this thread but i just wanted to explain why a 64on32 setup does make sense imho.

anyway BugJack, why don't you meet us @ soi8 on wednesday, and we can discuss this all in a (relatively) civilized manner? ;>}

agreed, it would be nice, Cloggie is coming from Pattaya too (BugJack, you're from there IIRC?)

by the way:

[BugJackBaron]

i did a (very) little research about this today, particularly about flashplayer, and it does appear that ubuntu is using the (beta) 64bit flashplayer plugin in their stable repos. not being an ubutu user, i don't really know (or care) what they are doing with the rest of it, but i am still using flashplayer and skype from multilib in the arch repos, which is a pain i admit, but if the arch developers don't trust the adobe beta then i don't either. personally, i am still hoping for an alternative to flash (and praying for the demise of adobe), but regardless i cannot do without skype, so have to deal with the lib32 bloat, and for now there isn't much choice (unless i want to build the package myself, which i am far too lazy to do).

anyway BugJack, why don't you meet us @ soi8 on wednesday, and we can discuss this all in a (relatively) civilized manner? ;>}

peas and carrots,

k

I think your post shows part of the problem with linux. You seem to be an arch user which is al fine and well. But in my opinion

the best desktop distro in the sense of being transparent and easy to the desktop user is Ubuntu.

Flash 64 square works fine - even in fullscreen with a modest computer - and i've been using it since it came out.

And like I said, java seems more stable on 64 bit.

Ah the evil lib32 through which bloat and darkness will descend on your distro like a virus onto a winbox

It's not that bad folks. And believe it or not if there is a security problem there are security updates, especially in Debian and Ubuntu.

Hard Drives are enormous these days with any machine from the last 5 years.

And at least in Ubuntu, there are native 64 packages for all but a handfull of software.

I really don't get it.I mean not to belabour the point here or anything

but compare the security to any program for windows. Most of course are closed source. Do you trust your bank ATM?

Closed source software runs it for sure. Yes there will always be some security concerns but c'est la vie.

BTW I would love to come to the meeting on Wednsday but not sure if I can make it. Where exactly is it? PM me if that's private.

Any chance of meeting in Pattaya?

I

[BugJackBaron]

Again, so what?

so the 64bit desktop is no there yet except if you want to use ugly hacks that double the chance of vulnerabilities when a library is affected and clutter your machine. Also, you mentioned mediabuntu which I guess is an unofficial repo so you better trust those guys and you'd better have some packaging skills if they disappear or do not offer updates quickly in case of security issue.

Do you think google supports buggy software? Their releases are solid, often even in beta.

I really, really do. Their installer is pure crap.

http://www.webupd8.o...untu-linux.html

In Ubuntu this is all done for you now and the process is transparent. If there are any bugs in them - and all software has some - , they are

linux bugs(or just bugs) and not due to being 64 bit.

there are, of course, bugs that only hit a specific architecture.

not so long time ago: http://linux.slashdo...4-Bit-Machines.

Not a bug but it also took a long time for 64bit Firefox user to get spidermonkey to be implemented... way after 32bit...

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, I have nothing against 64bit and I even run a 64bit torrentbox/HTPC/SSH server, but no desktop.

Anyway, let's just use what's best for each one of us, thanks to FOSS, it's easy to do.

OK fair enough but we seem to be down to how much to trust the ia32 libs(which run a handfull of applications). Like you say, to each there own but I am puzzled when you say you run a server with 64 but not a desktop. Surely, servers if anything should be more conservative

about security than desktops and therefor stick to 32 bit.

As for google Earth, well ok there installer isn't elegant but neither are most

solutions for instaling softare on linux given the diverse ways to install stuff depending on distribution(deb , rpm, etc )

However, it would be nice if they packaged some good ways of installing for the most commio distros.

And yes I trust medibuntu...they have been around for a long time and if they were to go there are at least a couple

of ways to install GE so it would not be the end of the world.

[urandom]

OK fair enough but we seem to be down to how much to trust the ia32 libs(which run a handfull of applications). Like you say, to each there own but I am puzzled when you say you run a server with 64 but not a desktop. Surely, servers if anything should be more conservative

about security than desktops and therefor stick to 32 bit.

no, that's irrelevant, I'm not using any closed source application on this server. this is a *pure* 64bit machine. no lib32-*-crap, no closed source binaries. closed sources apps are desktop apps mainly, the whole point

As for google Earth, well ok there installer isn't elegant but neither are most

solutions for instaling softare on linux given the diverse ways to install stuff depending on distribution(deb , rpm, etc )

there are very elegant and/or powerful packages manager in the linux world. please do not compare a crappy broken google script to nice pieces of code like pacman, paludis, etc... and it's not like GE's install script is not elegant, IT'S BROKEN :D

However, it would be nice if they packaged some good ways of installing for the most commio distros.

And yes I trust medibuntu...they have been around for a long time and if they were to go there are at least a couple

of ways to install GE so it would not be the end of the world.

GE is not the point, it's closed anyway. i was more talking about you getting any lib32 packages from them.