[LIH] 32-bit or 64-bit Linux on a 64-bit hardware

Hi,

I recently purchased a Compaq Presario V3700 (Core 2 Duo T8100, 4GB,
160GB, 14.3 inch, Camera, DVD RW). It came with 32-bit Vista Home
Premium SP1 preloaded. I have installed OpenSuSE 11.1 on it, which
of-course is 32-bit (that's the only DVD I had on my hands). I have
following queries and it will be helpful if you all can share your
experiences and views on these:

(1.) What is the disadvantage if I run a 64-bit distro on this system.
I want to be able to run firefox, flash, youtube all kinds of
multimedia and other apps.
(2.) Since this CPU is VT enabled, I want to be able to run some VMs
for testing, perhaps using KVM or Xen. Can I create a 64-bit VM on
32-bit OS.
(3.) What is the comparison of virtualisation tools in OpenSuSe,
Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu
(4.) SuSE has loaded Grub on /dev/sda3 (which is extended partition)
and make it active. So now if I want to get rid of Linux completely I
can just use fdisk and switch the active partition to /dev/sda1 and
Vista will start booting. Any idea if Fedora 10, Ubuntu or Debian can
be made to do the similar thing. I think they all change the MBR so
its not easy to remove grub just in case I want to remove that.

Regards.
-- 
Ajitabh Pandey
http://www.ajitabhpandey.info/ | http://www.unixclinic.net/
ICQ - 150615062
Registered Linux User - 240748

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