Hard decision

[Jonathan Berry]

On 3/22/06, Mariano López Reta <mlreta at alternativagratis.com> wrote:
> Fellow co-listers:
>
> Right now, on my machine, there's a 64bit FC4. The CPU is an Athlon64
> 3000+ with 512MB 400Mhz RAM. Graphics are handled by a GeForce 5200 with
> 128MB. HD is a 160GB 7200RPM Hitachi SATA.
>
> I'm downloading both x86-64 and i386 versions of FC5, so the big
> question is: should I "downgrade" to i386 in order to get all firefox
> plugins, less compilation hassles when compiling 3rd-party stuff, and
> (mainly) shockwave/flash (unfortunately, most web pages, including home
> banking ones, use flash in my country, so there's no way to avoid it).
> Or should I stick to the 64bit version and face all the inconveniences
> that I have now? Quick answer would be: if you can handle the hassle,

You can relatively easily run 32-bit Firefox with plugins on a 64-bit
OS and system.  I am doing that right now with FC4.  It takes a little
setup, but it can be done.  Search the mailing list archives for
details on how.

> keep 64. But the deeper question here is: is it worth it to face all the
> hassle? Are there really significant differences in performance?

That depends on what kind of programs you run.  Most programs are
interactive, and thus the slowest part is usually the human user ;). 
In those cases, you won't see much improvement.  If you run processor
and memory intensive programs, then you probably will see an
improvement.  For instance, I did some tests a while ago with the 3D
animation program Blender (in extras) and noted a better than 2x
improvement in rendering time with the 64-bit version.  I'd say that
is significant.  I need to rerun that test on my new hardware to
confirm that.

Jonathan