Arch Linux

pwntigo

Member

Registered: 2006-09-25

Posts: 15

arch64 or arch32

Hey, today i got my new conroe system and i wanted to ask what is better to install?

if i install arch64 i can do everything like watching movies, games, firefox with all the flugins, etc.

or if i install the reguler arch32 will i be able to do everything?

Dusty

Schwag Merchant

From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Registered: 2004-01-18

Posts: 5,986

Website

Re: arch64 or arch32

You will be able to do everything with Arch32. Arch64 you can do almost everything. You probably won't notice much interactive difference between the two systems.

Installing Arch isn't that hard. I would install Arch64 first. If you find its too hard to do certain things (check the other architectures forum for common problems), you can always switch to 32 bit.

I use 32-bit on my AMD64, but its mostly because I haven't had time to reinstall. :-)

Dusty

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iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: arch64 or arch32

You may run into issues with multimedia codecs, proprietary drivers, browser plugins and other general things if you use Arch64. That isn't to say that Arch64 isn't the best choice for you, as I'm running it now and you can work around all the above issues with time.

I agree with Dusty. You should try it out and see if you have any issues. If you don't like it, save your configs, install Arch32, and copy the configs back into place.

brain0

Developer

From: Aachen - Germany

Registered: 2005-01-03

Posts: 1,382

Re: arch64 or arch32

Here are the problems you will run into:

1) mplayer will only work with open source codecs. So you won't be able to play videos with newer windows media, realmedia or quicktime codecs.
2) most closed source apps will not work: that includes acroread, skype and the flashplayer (there is a workaround for the flashplayer though)

To use everything, you will need a second system (maybe arch32) in a chroot and do some scripting with dchroot to run programs in a 32 bit environment.

If you are going to use Arch on a desktop system, I only recommend it for experienced users, beginners will have much trouble working around these problems.