32 bit vs 64 bit

[John McGregor]

Chris Browne wrote:

> There's some benefit to both directions...
>
> - In the "running in 32 bit mode" direction, there is the merit that
> things like Flash players and video codecs and OpenOffice.org and such
> that are primarily or fundamentally 32 bit code will run with as few
> layers of complications as possible.
>
> - Of course, there will be applications that can benefit from being
> aware of extra registers and of larger "bit grabs".
>
> I don't see indication of there being **enormous** performance
> differences for common "desktop and web browsing and writing some
> documents" purposes...
>
Thanks Chris, that really helps. The reason that I aked the question in 
the first place is that the distro I plan to use is MEPIS -- which 
does't have a 64 bit version, at least on the basis of the mirrors that 
I checked. I am taking courses through the Chang School at Ryerson. 
Ryerson seems to be pretty Windows centric in terms of how written work 
can be submitted, so I need  Open Office ( to be able to save as a .doc) 
to work with a minimum of fuss and bother. As well, the laptop has a 
Broadcom 43xx wireless nic, so I am likely going to have to use 
ndiswrapper in order to get it working. I am sure that there are people 
on this list  for whom solving these problems on a 64 bit machine would 
be a 'no brainer', but I am not in that league yet. :lol:

John

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