The state of 64-bit Desktop Linux

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:52:48AM -0500, Marc Lanctot wrote:
> My main machine at home has really been slow and I realized I made a bad 
> purchase 2 years ago. I'm quite sure it was low quality hardware that 
> was to blame, a HP Pavilion that came with a Pentium D chip which I'd 
> never heard of. I never figured out if Ubuntu was the cause of any of 
> the slow down but I do know that when I used Fluxbox over Gnome, or KDE 
> applications vs. Gnome applications the slowdown was more tolerable. If 
> I left my machine on all the time.. after 2-3 days it became unusable 
> unless I rebooted it. It became quite loud too, regardless of how many 
> fans I'd used to try to fix the heat problem.

Clean the heatsink.  If the heatsink is full of dust, then air can't
flow through it, which stalls the fan, and makes the fan run faster
(while doing nothing useful) and hence make more noise.  I cleaned the
heatsink on my wife's laptop, and it went from making a ton of noise to
be as quiet as the day she got it, and the CPU temp dropped 15C.

The Pentium D was first a rebranded Pentium4 dual core, which like all
other pentium 4s is just a crappy design.  Some newer ones are Core
Duo's (Pentium M based) which is better, or even Core 2 Duo's with most
of their cache stripped off (think celeron).

> I recently ordered a Dell Precision T3400. It's coming with a 64-bit 
> Intel Core 2 Duo (3 GHz) processor. It's a desktop intended to be a home 
> machine, user-friendly enough for my girlfriend to use as well.

I know better than to buy computers from Dell.

> In the past I've fought with 64-bit distributions. It's not Linux itself 
> that was the problem, it was the lack of compatibility for certain key 
> applications I'd gotten used to, mainly: Flash and Java browser plugins.

Yeah proprietary software is the only problem with 64bit linux.  Go
figure.

Now flash with the 32bit wrapper seems to work (about as well as it does
on 32bit linux, which isn't great stability wise), and for java, well I
think I read in the bug report at sun about 64bit plugin support that
they promised to look at the problem in Q1 of 2009, so maybe they are
working on it now.  Never mind blackdown managed to make it work years
ago.  Apparently sun programmers work differently.

> Now I've done the whole having a separate Firefox, or having a 32-bit 
> plugin wrapper, or using open flash alternatives. I'm not interested in 
> these "hacks". I would like to run Adobe Flash native and Sun's (not 
> Blackdown or anything else) Java plugin for Firefox. I ran into so many 
> problems that I decided I wasn't ready to run 64-bit Linux on a desktop 
> and have been dealing with a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit capable processor.

Well feel free to nag the responsible companies, or find open source
alternatives (good luck on that part too).  No one other than those
companies can decide when they will get a clue.

> I've seen recently that Adobe *finally* released support for 64-bit 
> Flash in version 10 (beta?).

alpha?  Not sure.

> It seems like after 2 years there's hope for me running 64-bit Linux on 
> my desktop.
> 
> My questions are, /from your experience/
> 
> - I'll need to shrink the partition with Vista on it to make space for 
> my Linux partition. I usually use GNU parted. Do you foresee any issues 
> with this?

You will probably have to run the vista repair console to fix the boot
loader since vista's bootloader is paranoid about ANY changes to the
vista partition.  Simple procedure if you have a _real_ vista install
disc.  A recovery disc is of no use.  An 'upgrade anytime' disc or
whatever they are called that some systems come with, does work.  Dell
does include a real DVD with vista I believe, contrary to most of the
name brand machines.

> - Is the 64-bit NVIDIA drivers stable and working well (compared to the 
> 32-bit ones). I'm getting a "256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor 
> DVI Capable". The most intense thing I do with my video card is watch 
> movies (no games, no video production, etc.) With my current machine, 
> even watching a single movie will cause noticeable slow down afterwards.

Nvidia works exactly the same on 32 and 64bit.  My mythtv box has been
running 64bit for a year now on a Core 2 Quad Q6600.

> - Is 64-bit Flash 10 stable and working well?

No.  It's adobe flash.  It will _never_ be stable or working well.

> - Can I use an up-to-date Sun 64-bit Java plugin for Firefox (let's say 
> "up-to-date means" 5.0 or later)

Never seen one yet.

> - Is there any reason I would install, say, Debian vs. Ubuntu. Of all 
> the distros I've tried these two remain my favorite. However, Ubuntu has 
> continued to let me down since it came out. I keep using it because it's 
> more user friendly for my girlfriend (nice apps for Digital Cameras 
> etc.) though I have gone back and forth several times. The main issue I 
> have is that it makes a lot of assumptions that slow your machine down.. 
> like file system options and running several unnecessary background 
> processes that bloat up the system. I've had problem with compiz slowing 
> down video as well. Maybe this won't be much of an issue on the new 
> machine... or maybe I can just look into a HOWTO for slimming down the 
> default Ubuntu.

Well I am happy with Debian on mine, and have been for many years now.

> - Are there any other obvious problems running 64-bit Linux on a Desktop 
> I should know about?

Other than the flash, video codecs, java, and other proprietary software
things, nope none I have encountered.  It just works.

> Your answers will determine whether or not I stick with 32-bit OS for 
> the time-being. Thanks in advance for your help.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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