[LAU] Pros and cons of 64 bit Linux

[Jostein Chr. Andersen]

On Thursday August 13 2009 22.12.30 Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote:
> I am setting up a new system, running an ATI Radeon video card and a
> RME PCI sound card. My box can run a 64 bit Linux operating system,
> and I already have an Ubuntu 9.04 x64 installer ready. I wonder what
> are the pros and cons of running a 64 bit Linux system nowadays. This
> machine will not be used only for audio and video work, also for
> blogging so I need that the Firefox web browser and all extensions run
> flawlessly. Any info will be very useful so thanks in advance. Compiz?
> Java? Flash?

Using Fedora 10, 64-bit with CCRMA here. The system is an Athlon64 X2 based 
computer with 8 GB of RAM and with a M-Audio Delta 1010 card.

No problems at all with Pulseadio vs. Jack (using Jack 1.9* from the CCRMA 
repo) everything works. Did install Sun's 64-bit Java manually in order to 
make apps like Fantasia (front end for Linuxsampler) work. Flash 64-bit is the 
only option IMO on a 64-bit-system, it works so much better than anything else 
when using the web. Flash do make some problems when using Jack (I'm using 
Jack for Amarok and Kaffeine in addition to the music stuff), but that doesn't 
matter because I never use Flash (or any web reader) when working with music 
anyway.

Can't use VSTs (well it's possible with 32 bit wine but it sucks on my 
system). I finally decided to not even dream of VSTs and are happy because I'm 
not aware of what I'm missing and plugins from LADSPA, DSSI and LV2 does 
everything I need. It's also a kind of philosophy thing: I believe that I 
support technologies like LADSPA, DSSI and LV2 by using them.


I have a silent (no fan) ATI Radeon HD 3450 card, using Xorg's driver, the 
binary driver from ATI makes the screen blurry. I use KDE 4 with "Compiz" but 
with Xrender compositing in stead of OpenGL; on my system  Compiz don't work 
with OpenGL, but that situation will probably change quite soon.



As a conclusion: 64-bit works good enough for me, but not right out of the 
box.

Jostein