I'll be receiving a new notebook in a few days and was planning on running Ubuntu on it as it's compatible and the notebook has no OS pre-installed. The specifications are: Core 2 Duo, T6600, 4 GB RAM, Intel integrated graphics.
I know a year or two ago, running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu was not advised due to much of the applications and plugins (e.g. Flash) only running on 32-bit. Is this still the case? Would I get better performance with 64-bit Ubuntu since I have 4 GB of RAM? Are there any downsides anymore?
Answer
Plus sides:
- It will be slightly faster. While 64bit vs 32bit apps don't make a huge performance difference, developers can make assumptions about speed-related features being present in 64-bit processors that they can't with 32bit apps.
- You can use all 4GB of RAM, as opposed to roughly 3.2GB. (There are ways around this for 32bit systems, but it's not simple)
Negative sides:
- While nowadays you won't find many apps that just don't work on 64bit, there are some (Adobe Air comes to mind), that do require more effort to install.
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