I want to try opensuse and currently am using Ubuntu hardy 64bit ( because I had problems with other distros and my ati 3870HD vid card drivers) amd I going to have any problems running 64bit well actually I guess the real question to ask is how much of a difference is the between 32 and 64 bit opensuse?
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Difference? About thirty-two bits. I run 64-bit SLED 10 SP2 (based on
opensuse 10.1) 24x7 now (from this machine in fact) and it has been
great. I use it on another machine (desktop) too because I have eight
GB RAM so that helps there. The OS, in my experience, is solid when in
64-bit mode. Applications on top of it may not be, though. Most 32-bit
applications work perfectly on my 64-bit OS though it’s possible some
that are behind may not play as well as they could. Anyway it works
well for me on an older version of SUSE and I know people doing the same
with OpenSUSE 11, so you should be fine. If you have 4+ GB RAM I’d
definitely recommend 64-bit. Otherwise, it’s up to you. If you want to
virtualize anything 64-bit you need a 64-bit host as well.
Good luck.
Shadowmeph wrote:
> I want to try opensuse and currently am using Ubuntu hardy 64bit (
> because I had problems with other distros and my ati 3870HD vid card
> drivers) amd I going to have any problems running 64bit well actually I
> guess the real question to ask is how much of a difference is the
> between 32 and 64 bit opensuse?
>
>
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Hi there, when I first installed openSuSE 11.0 I used the 64 bit version, with my ATI 3870. I had issues with the ATI drivers, and thought it may have had to do with 64bit, so I switched to 32 bit. Turned out that when playing around to prove the theory of 32 v.s 64 for the drivers for my card being a problem, 64bit wasn’t a problem at all, I simply had bad install media for my original install. I switched back to 64bit. So at least with the drivers from ATI’s website it seems they work on either a 32bit or 64bit openSuSE with the card. One thing I noticed while using the 32bit version was my sound card, hd-intel, was experiencing choppy sound. Under 64bit, it does not have this problem.
All in all I have found very little that is not working well in the 64bit version of openSuSE. I have an issue with the java plugin for firefox. I can live without it. The overall performance gain or loss between the two, really seems negligible, but if you have a lot of memory in your system you will best be served to go with 64 as it handles memory beyond 4GB natively. Things also really seem to be going in the 64bit direction, so you may future proof yourself to get started with it.
Hope this, helps, take care!
Just to chime in with a different opinion on this, IMHO it is very unlikely that one will have choppy sound, and if anything 64-bit is more likely to experience it than 32-bit. The support for 32-bit has been around longer, and that IMHO is the reason.
The special desktop effects ( 3d / “the cube” ) when enabled have been known to cause users some audio problems. As well pulse audio with Gnome and KDE4 on openSUSE-11.0 (and also on the latest Fedora and Ubuntu) have been known to cause users some problems. KDE-3.5.9 on openSUSE-11 is pretty much rock solid and if configured correctly, no choppy audio problems.
well I know that my Asus XonarDX sound card doesn’t like Linux had to compile my own oss driver which was a huge thing because when I wanted to learn about Linux I installed Arch ( huge learning experience there) which was the first OS on the built PC that I built, anyways I learned allot . I ended up going back to Ubuntu and because of my problem installing the ATI drivers.
from what I have read here so far it looks like ( wjhen I finnaly get my second hard drive in a couple of weeks) that I am going to install Opensuse on it and play around until I get familiar with it.
Hi, thanks for the info oldcpu. Yes, I would have to completely agree that it’s odd the 32bit suse didn’t handle my sound card very well vs. the 64. One thing though, the ATI 3870, has HDMI sound card built in, and I wonder if that was somehow to blame for the issue. I didn’t really have the 32bit version on long enough to do any troubleshooting. As far as desktop effects go, I am not really all that interested in compiz etc. As a matter of fact, my default desktop is XFCE! 
In case you’re interested, here is some lspci info, maybe you will be able to see something from that which helps explain the choppy sound! Take care.
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 Northbridge only dual slot PCI-e_GFX and HT3 K8 part
00:02.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port A)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port A)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port C)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port D)
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3870
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3870 Audio device
02:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller (rev b1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
04:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller (rev b2)
05:08.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW323 (rev 70)