Building an i5-2500ks c/w 8gb ram and ssd drive, should I use 64-bit?

Question

Should I use the 64bit version or the 32bit. Will it satisfy me coming from a Windows system background. Sounds like a great alternative?

Just wondering if anybody has done similar?

Answer 1

Short answer : Yes.

If you want a longer explanation and some documentation about the topic, see ubuntu-64-bit-vs-32-bit.

Answer 2

Yes. A better question these days might be "why not use 64-bit?".

For one thing, to my understanding, you'd only be able to use 4 GB of the RAM with a 32-bit OS.

I've personally been using 64-bit Ubuntu installations for the last few years for my work machine, and haven't had issues with that.

Answer 3

You can use 64-bit system if you want (but not forced). You shouldn't if you prefer 32-bit. Both are fits well for most of desktop system.

Why you can use 32-bit system

• Using PAE kernel you can run 32-bit linux system with up to 64GB RAM. PAE allows to access a physical address space more than 4GB but only 4GB per process (AFAIK).
• Almost all known application were developed for 32-bit systems. So you will not have "how can I run my flash player on 64-bit system" issues

Why you may want to use 64-bit system

• Applications developed with 64-bit in mind may operate faster
• You have to use heavy apps required more than 4GB memory per process (running large databases etc.)