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Why not use 64-bit Ubuntu?

11.04 is already available. But why 32bit is again recommended and what's "wrong" with x64 ?

P.S. I know about this question, but this is kinda different.

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I have to admit that this one really puzzles me too. Perhaps most Ubuntu users have <4 GB RAM installed, perhaps Flash is still a problem, perhaps it's rampant conservatism. The Athlon 64 came out eight years ago. Surely most desktop users have 64-bit CPUs nowadays. I feel it's time to make a very bold stride forward into a brave new world of computing. –  boehj Apr 28 '11 at 14:37
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marked as duplicate by Lekensteyn, Marco Ceppi Apr 28 '11 at 15:03


2 Answers

I would think this recommendation is for those aren't aware otherwise.

I am not from Canonical, but I am thinking "32 bit" will work on all new PC's, "64 bit" won't. It would be bad if there was any form of fuss online if many people installed the reommended version, and have it not work correctly.

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There are more 32-bit packages supported compared to the 64-bit set.
And, there is still a wider footprint of 32-bit platforms.
This is the reason we still see 32-bit being 'recommended'.

You might be interested in some history -- related to Ubuntu 10.04/10.10, Why not use 64-bit Ubuntu?
Refers to Launchpad bug 585940, from 26th May 2010 titled,
Text reads "not recommended" for 64-bit.

Guess, it is better to see a 'recommended' tag on 32-bit;
rather than a 'not recommended' tag on the 64-bit version :-)
Maybe that too will go away by the next LTS release...

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So, you mean that my laptop with CPU : dual core, 2.2GHz, 64bit and RAM 4GB, 1GB video - will run better with 32bit ? Or, at least, will not run worse ? –  Kiril Kirov Apr 28 '11 at 14:55
fwiw, I use the amd64 builds on all my 64-bit systems. –  nik Sep 10 '11 at 4:24
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