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

On Wednesday 18 Feb 2009, Ajitabh Pandey wrote:
> 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:

Even though the cpu may be 64 bit, ensure that the sytem BIOS allows 
install of 64 bit OS.

I had to update the system BIOS on a D945GCLF board to before it would 
let me install 64bit openSUSE 11.1.  With the original BIOS, I kept 
getting kernel panic even in "safe mode"

> (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.

IIRC, you can run 32bit FF and it's associated 32bit plugins (flash, 
acroread etc.)

> (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.

Not sure if this is possible.

> (3.) What is the comparison of virtualisation tools in OpenSuSe,
> Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu

I use openSUSE 11.1 - VirtualBox, OSE v2.0.6 (?) is included in the DVD.  
You can always download custom package for all the major distros from 
VritualBox site.  Xen is also included in openSUSE.

> (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.

By "active" do you mean bootable?  Use cfdisk and mark the relevant 
partition bootable.

HTH
-- Arun Khan



-- 
Arun Khan


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