Fedora 9 64-bit

64-bit computing is the future, or so the chip companies and PC manufacturers are telling us. Well yes and no. I guess if you only use the computer as nothing more than a simple Internet box, a glorified typewriter and a music player, it really doesn't matter whether you run a 32 or 64-bit platform.

As more 64-bit CPUs are powering anything from notebook computers to servers, the need for 64-bit platform and software is growing by the day.

Linux and the OSS world has been 64-bit ready for quite some time now. For the server, no one can sensibly argue that Linux is lacking in any way. However on the desktop, 64-bit Linux has always been somewhat lacking. Though I am all for software freedom and openess, the fact remains that many stuff in the Net are still propreitary (Flash, Java etc); 32-bit Linux did and still does not have this issue, its 64-bit version has somewhat been the poor cousin, until now.

I installed Fedora 9 64-bit and so far, I have not seen any lack of software and plugins. In the office I listen to MP3s and CDs. I also on occasion do some "Youtubing" after hours. So far, it has stood up to the challenge.

All video plugins are available from the Livna repo. To install/enable the Livna repo, please refer to here.

The instructions also covers an easy how-to installation of the Flash plugin for the 64-bit platform (a frequent complain of frequent surfers running on 64-bit Linux is how hard it is to enable Flash plugin).

For Adobe Acrobat, I used the tarball to install.

Wammu which I use to synchronise my trusty SE W850i also works without a hitch. So far, I have been running Fedora 9 x86_64 north of 24 hours and I have yet to see any problems with it.