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My VPS hosting service allow me to install both Ubuntu 32bit and 64bit.

I need to install Apache, Mysql and Drupal on my server. I was wondering if I should go with 64bit and why ?

more in general

1) Is 32-64bit choice going to create software incompatibility issues ?

2) I thought the choice should depend on the machine architecture. Is that correct ? If yes, does this mean they are asking me what kind of processor I want to use ?

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possible duplicate of What are the main benefits of Windows 64-bit over 32-bit? –  ThatGraemeGuy Sep 10 '10 at 7:23
Yes, I know the other question specifies Windows. It's the closest one I could find. If you just search for "32-bit 64-bit" you'll see this has been answered many times over. –  ThatGraemeGuy Sep 10 '10 at 7:24

3 Answers 3

up vote 4 down vote accepted

None. There is NO (!) sense today to install a 32 bit server. 32 bit will lock you into a total reinstall if you need more memory etc. - applications are another thing (makes quite often sense to run them 32 bit), but the OS should never be 32 bit.

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32 bit system consule less memory. If growth over 3 Gb not planned. –  mmv-ru Sep 10 '10 at 10:18
@mmv - I keep hearing people say that a 64-bit OS consumes more memory and citing that as an excuse to stick with 32-bit... and I keep not seeing the point. Unless you're running a machine with 256Mb of RAM it's not going to make a difference. –  Mark Henderson Sep 10 '10 at 11:25
It's worth noting that vendors of a lot of server products are slowly moving to 64-bit only. A 32-bit server will limit your options when you look at upgrading to newer versions of some of your software. –  GAThrawn Sep 10 '10 at 12:38
Same here. I am totaly 64 btit, client and server, for years. But then, I have VM's with gigabytes of memory because they need it. –  TomTom Sep 10 '10 at 20:19

Need for a larger (3GB+) address space, availability of 32-/64-bit versions of software, and (for i386 vs. x86_64) use of larger register count for e.g. multimedia or scientific purposes.

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As TomTom said, why shouldn't you choose a 64-bit server... The services/applications you list will work on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu...

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