[S-99]

Are there any? I'm not too fond of the intel atom N270 that all of them have these days. They are capable of 64 bit processing, but the N series atom doesn't have it activated. I thought this was really crappy. In the future will there be bios or processor hacks to unlock the processor? Similar things have been done like this in the past. One thing it reminds me of is back in the day people using pencils to unlock their athlons. I'm just hoping something is capable for the atom N series. Talk about 32 bit processing die hard. 64 bit is the next in line and everything transitioning over to it. Then all netbooks so far have great low power processor innovations and no 64 bit capability when it's pretty much standard on all modern computers today.

I already have an asus eee 901 in the mail. I did a thorough search on any netbooks x86-64 capable and there is none. I know in the world of windows and mac that 32 bit will be phased out when they say it will be gone. I know that's not quite so true for linux, because distros are renowned for releasing all source code which means that stuff well into the future can still be compiled for 32 bit processing.

That's good news since i'll be running linux on the asus, but even how long will that last? I was planning on having the asus well into the future and thought that 64 bit for a netbook would be a given. But, i'd still prefer running 64 bit on a netbook. Then i could cram 4gb of ram or more in one, and take advantage of other cool 64 bit capabilities whatever they may be.

[castor]

Yea, yea, yea.. but lets think about it. Is there really any need to have top of the line software/hardware in your netbook? Why? Whatever you have in it, its still gonna suck in terms of (usable) features and computing power.
Linux 32bit stuff will be available for years still. And when it eventually is gone, you'll already have a functional 32bitOS and all the bits you need installed, for such a little trinket of a PC. Even if all goes to hell and it will be useless after 2 years, you didn't lose you life savings on it anyway.

[IceFire]

Whats the 64bit going to help you with right now or even a few years from now?  Not much unless you intend to put allot of extra RAM in there.

[Nuke]

i think that its a misconception that you need a 64 bit os to use more ram than 4gb. some server oses, which are 32 bit, can take much more ram.  advanced server 2000 had support for 8gb, datacenter 2000 supported 64 gig, 2003 enterprise cand run 32 gig and so on. of course those exceptions are more or less because of special code modifications in the os. so while the os may be able to see and us all of the memory, individual programs lack the code to deal with the extended pointer types and cant use more than the first 4 gb. then even with the 4 gig limit, the machine will still reserve virtual memory far above the 4 gig limit. my point is there are always things that can be done at the os level to get around the hard limit. the fact tat they have not been done is unfortunate.

id like to see something that lets you, in a 32 bit os, use the addentional ram for other purposes. one idea is to use it as a ramdisk, then use that temporary ramdisk as a swap file, or anythin else you may want to store temporarily. or you could use it in a virtual machine type environment. not really sure how things work on the linux side.

still on a netbook, i really don see the point. its a netbook, not a gaming rig. i mean with what theyre designed to do 4 gb is plenty. theyre cute and all but i never really could see a point to owning one. aside from memory, which seems to me to be more a problem with the code than the hardware, i cant really name a reason why 64 bit software is neccisary at the moment. 64 bit cpus are optimized to work well in either a 32 or 64 bit environment.

[S-99]

I know what you're talking about there with server os'es. It's more than just the memory. The cpu and memory will be able to pass around chunks of data twice the size at the same speed compared to 32 bit stuff. That just means more throughput.

I've moved over to 64 bit fine. Stuff like video processing software does run much faster in 64 bit. The most i've done with that is convert xvid videos to dvd playable format, and instead of an hour and a half, it got shrunk down to 20 mins. It was pretty nice. 64 bit does mean extra speed for whatever software was designed to take advantage of it. The odd fact that second generation netbooks don't have 64 bit capability by now is just odd. Like i said, intel atom processors have 64 bit capability except for the N and Z series. Methinks this is what will make 32 bit not die anytime soon. I'd just prefer to run 64 bit. I'll have to bite the bullet on this one. It's still a good buy, the asus eee 901 will run all of my favorite foss games like openarena (not going to play fs2 open on it).

My brother did recommend getting a nokia N810. But, that didn't sound like it was for me. Netbooks can do more than just surf the net, they can play older games relatively great, great battery life, good hardware compatibility with windows and linux, not to mention it's a complete package...camera, microphone, extra usb's, two good os'es to choose from, etc. Basically it will do more than just surf the net. Me and my friends gather together frequently to do lan gaming with only fos games. Assault cube, openarena, and urban terror. The fact that i can play these games on the eee 901 is fantastic. I'll mainly be using it for it's portability and battery life with general use on web surfing and typing. The SSD guarantees i wont destroy the laptop hard drive when spring hits and i'll soley be riding my bike to classes. Linux compatibility should i stick with xandros or plop something else linux on there will let me use 32 bit apps well into the future and guarantee linux compatibility with more than just hardware. I'm a big fan of linux software, and a device with all hardware compatible with linux is really great for me. Also it doesn't weigh that much and is very small sized. I wont need to buy a special laptop case for it at all. I'll just shove the eee 901 inside it's protective sleeve it comes with and put it in my backpack. Porting around my backpack with main laptop i never like doing.

Also, for the value of my laptop, i realized i could get a netbook and a no os desktop gaming machine for the same price. Idk if any of you wants to buy a vostro 1500 for 500$ bought mid summer 2008 for $500? 1.4 core 2 duo, dual channeled 2gb memory, 8400m gs 128mb, dvd+-rw burner, 120gb hdd, 15.xx inch laptop capable of 1280x800 max resolution, intel pro wireless b/g. It will play ut3 and fear 2 demo. All of the hardware is linux compatible, and not even necessary to go to dell's website for driver hunting...vista detected and installed everything fantastically with no driver hunting needed (even better since dell didn't release 64 bit drivers for vista for this model...talk about getting lucky...i was messing around with vista and found out some great new user habits for windows users...UAC IS GREAT!!!).

[Nuke]

the laptop i bought was mostly out of necessity. so i didn't spend all that much. just got something with good video and to hell with anything else. battery life sucks, but i really don't like lugging around a ****load of electronics everywhere i go. as far as solid state drives go, they're getting kinda cheap, so i might upgrade the laptop to one when i can get a reasonable capacity for kinda cheap. i like to think the mechanical hard drive's days are numbered.

im currently more interested in some of these single board computers out there. everything you need with the exception the flash card and the memory. small enough you can put them anywhere. put linux on it, freedos32, whatever. when it comes right down to it, 32 bit is more than adequate  for general purpose computing, embedded systems, or ultra portable computers. on that note they only within the last couple years stopped producing the 486. and they will definately stay around so long as ms continues to put out 32bit oses. its more profitable to keep an old cpu in production than to retool the line for a 64 bit cpu. its also more profitable for microsoft to have several versions of its os, to confuse the masses.

[colecampbell666]

The Intel 530X is set to launch. Could that possibly hold the key?

[S-99]

Probably when the line of netbooks incorporating it will be new and come out later this year and be damned expensive and must wait for them to fall in price. This sucks

[colecampbell666]

Probably when the line of netbooks incorporating it will be new and come out later this year and be damned expensive and must wait for them to fall in price. This sucks

The Dell Inspiron 12 uses it.

[S-99]

that's the problem with the inspiron 12. It uses the Z series atom. N and Z series don't have 64 bit activated. The inspiron 12 looked really nice. So far the best buy anyone can have for a netbook is asus or msi.