I'm wondering what release is more stable in terms of hardware drivers support for a Lenovo B570e , 12.10 or 12.04 ?
I have a 64 bit system but I see on the website the recommended version is 32bits.
I'm a little bit confused, actually what I need to know is which one is better for hardware components support.
I can't speak specifically about the Lenovo b570e. But I do see it listed as being certified for Ubuntu 12.04, and community members have listed it as working with 12.04. Presumably it'll work just as well, if not better with 12.10.
All Ubuntu releases should be fit for use. Normal releases are supported for 18 months. LTS releases for 5 years.
New hardware support gets backported to LTS releases, in point releases. The first point release after Ubuntu 12.10 (12.04.2) should support everything that 12.10 did. But that's only coming out at the end of January. So until then, 12.10 will support hardware that 12.04 doesn't.
I have a four-week old Lenovo z580 and I run 12.10 64bit.
To answer your questions
Though 32 bit is the recommended version, you can perfectly install the 64bit version. It works fine.
Both 12.10 and 12.04 are fairly steady in terms of hardware support. That is, let me be precise, all your hardware will work out of the box, but if you have nvidia optimus (which means you have a graphical processor on your normal processor and one separately), this will not work out of the box. Check bumblebee for that. All other hardware should work fine both on 12.04 en 12.10.
One thing you might want to take into account is whether or not you have UEFI booting (if your hardware is new, you might have UEFI). You can check it by holding F2 on boot and going through the menu. From what I know, 12.10 is a signed version (read this post) and 12.04 is not.
The other thing to take into account is whether or not you want to work on an LTS version (as you indicate yourself). That is a personal choice.
All in all, I think 12.10 is the way to go for you. One piece of advice based on my experience: take your time to install ubuntu. I had to play with the boot options in my 'BIOS'. Also, think your partitioning scheme through in advance to avoid unnecessary work.
Good luck.
I have Lenovo b570e :D I have 4GB ram running 12.10 64bit. No hardware problems. So go on. Don't forget to set EFI boot partition about 200MB before / mount point, because we have EFI/UEFI. Aha and when you are about to install from eg.USB just set it in BIOS then save it and let it go, the secure boot will disable automatically, But if you eg. wanna check if usb or dvd is set as first in boot order and you'll find it is and exit bios with "discard settings" the secure boot will not disable and you will find that you cannot set the EFI boot partition. I have installed like 20 times :/ before i found out why i can't set efi boot partition, and without it after you install system will not boot. If you reinstall you have to set new efi boot partition even if you already have. Hope you understood my writings :) Please visit my blog www.ubuntufixer.blogspot.com you'll find there lots of tweaks for Ubuntu and mint. Good luck.
