[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

No. It's the other way around. 32 bit is a subset of 64 bit. You can run 32 bit programs on a 64 bit machine (and most application program code is still 32 bit.) You cannot run code built as 64 bit on a 32 bit machine.

32 bit and 64 bit refer to the amount of memory the machine can use. That value is called the machine's address space. Each byte of memory must have a unique address the system can access to load, store, change, and remove data. The number of possible unique addresses is governed by the size of the register that holds the address. 32 bit machines have addresses that are up to 2^32 in size, which means a maximum of 4GB worth of addresses. 64 bit machines us a 64 bit address register, but I'll let you do the math as to how big a number that can be. (It's a very large number indeed.)

Thanks for the explanation. And yeah, I'll get back to you with that number. LOL

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Still curious about the specs on the 505s.

http://www.cnet.com/products/dell-latitude-d505/specs/

And I've never adding anything to any of them.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You might want to download and install Ubuntu Tweak. It's a system cleaner utility, and one of the things it makes easy is removing older Linux kernels. New kernels do not replace existing ones. They are installed in addition to any existing kernels, and a successful upgrade will have the new kernel the one that will be loaded by default. You can select earlier ones via Grub. Run Ubuntu long enough and get enough new kernels, and you can have a significant amount of stuff occupying space to no purpose. I generally clean out all but the current and immediately previous kernel, and delete the older kernels and associated kernel header packages. One such exercise recovered close to a GB of disk space, as I hadn't cleaned house in a while.

I get rid of the old kernels regularly via:

sudo aptitude remove

I too usually only leave the previous kernel, but after this latest nonsense I'll leave at least two previous kernels.

Ubuntu Tweak said it was no longer maintained. https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak

Do you think it will be a big help (or that much easier than what I'm already doing)?

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

There is no direct connection between OS version upgrades and application version upgrades. They happen independently of each other. Depending on your setting in Ubuntu, you get notified when there are newer versions of applications you have installed when they appear. Newer versions of the apps will generally run just fine on older versions of the OS, and if there are OS version dependencies, you'll be informed of them.


If you don't go with the LTS, you are a beta guy. LTS stands for Long Term Support, and LTS releases are considered to be stable and debugged. Intermediate releases are not, and are beta code. You can have problems (and I have) by using them. They are there for testing purposes, and sometimes tests fail.

Thanks a lot. I am definitely going long term from now on. Like I said I'm not a beta guy.

Do the apps get updated (like I have Sigil and mkusb and Kate etc) via the regular 'software updates' Xubuntu sends?

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

We still have the question of what all is going on before it reaches that point, but I gather once it has the system is usable and behaves as expected.

Power on and go have a leisurely coffee break, then come back and use it.

(Our friend Naomi was grousing that her Internet at home wasn't working. In fact, it was working fine. I set up her wireless router for her and her laptop automatically authenticates. The problem was, she was impatient. She was trying to use the machine and go online before it had fully booted and reached the stage of authenticating with the router. My SO said "You were trying to use it before it had its coffee. You know what you're like before you have coffee. Turn on the laptop, go have a cup of coffee yourself, and by the time you come back the Internet should be available." That she understood, and when she followed the advice, Lo! Things Just Worked. )
______
Dennis

The computer has been a little snarky (eg. When I click on a tab in Firefox about 10% of the time it will open a new browser), but I am pretty happy with things the way they are working. And I'm thinking that now that I am turning on the computer the conventional way and it's booting to the latest kernel that I should have a decent chance of the boot delay issue clearing up with the next upgrade.

Thanks for all the great explanations and help. You know, I amazed that my computers work as well as they do with as little as I know about them. Yes, like you say, I should know what I'm doing before I pull the trigger, but I can also tell you that if I waited till I knew what I was doing I would not have gotten 95% of the stuff I got done by pretty much by trusting others and flying by the seat of my pants.

The good news is the longer I'm around the more I know. I'm getting there.