Re: [LAU] 32 vs 64 bit distro?

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 1:02 PM, david &lt;gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com <mailto:gnome@hawaii.rr.com>> wrote: On 02/04/2013 11:29 PM, James Stone wrote: Is there any advantage in using a 64 bit distro for audio? Do the advantages outweigh the difficulties? I'm expecting a new computer to be delivered today and am trying to decide what to install... What difficulties? I run both 32- and 64-bit Linuxes, and have no difficulties with either one. I can't imagine why anyone would run a 32-bit Linux on a modern processor. Virtually every processor made today is 64-bit. Even the little old dual-core ARM processor in my wife's netbook is 64-bit! 64-bit gives programs access to more on-chip registers, and removes the need for the silly physical address extension (PAE) stuff. It surprises me that none of you seem to remember ~2007. The question of whether to use 32-bit linux on a 64-bit processor is just a bit of superstition left over from the days when 64-bit linux had limited compatibility.

The solution to most desktop users back then was: just run a 32-bit PAE version of linux. Yeah, really that was just about 6 years ago :)