Hello,
as a long time linux user I have probably hopped across every major
distribution of linux out there.
Recently I was tired of the 32 bit distros and thought I would try a 64 bit distro.
Mepis-7 was my first choice and it is a fine distro. Flash-9, java and nvidia all OK.
Then Debian Lenny which was and fast, and had a huge repository of software
but hard to get things like nvidia drvers and flash-9 working.
Finally I thought I would try vector again as VL-64 was announced on distrowatch.
What a great surprise! Not only is this by far the most stable and fastest(especially in reboot)
distro but also has working flash-9 , java and nvidia. Also compiz gave me nice semitransparent windows easily.
So what is so great about 64 bit linux? All I can say is you don't need more than 4GB ram to see the advantages:
(1) faster less laggy desktop response..this is subjective and hard to quantify but many others say the same
(2) Java is more stable.........I regularly use jin and decaf to play chess online and they ALWAYS crash eventually
on 32 bit linux(even on windows this has happened) (due to poor sound handling in java apis i think)
On 64 bit linux this has yet to happen after 3 months useage.
(3) Some annoying bugs like poor sound with some SDL games are gone(lbreakout2 has no static when brick burst)
(4) It is clearly the wave the future...many distros are hard at work producing 64 bit version and if you upgrade to more than 4GB ram
it will be the natural choice
My one wish is that more packages get built for it..Gnome or KDE. would be really nice.
All-in-all a super distro and keep up the good work.