At the risk of hijacking my own thread . . .
. . . once you spelled it out, I had one of those “of course” moments where I slapped my forehead. It simply never occurred to me that it was left to me to determine whether my system should operate in either 32- or 64-bit mode. I had assumed it was preconfigured at the factory to be only one, only the other, or – somehow, mysteriously – both at the same time, i.e. op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
If
$ lscpu
had returned this instead:
op-mode(s): 32-bit or 64-bit, your choice
. . . then I would have understood clearly. It took your answer to finally lift the fog for me. So, thank you for that.
And now I have a 64-bit UB distribution on a bootable USB stick, ready to go.
But, I wonder.
You say my system is adequate to run 64-bit UB distribution. The UB download site says, Not so much. My system is 1st-gen XPS, and there is a lot to like about this machine, but when it comes to Ubuntu Budgie, it seems to occupy a performance gray zone: It has 165 percent of the memory needed to run 32-bit UB, and 83 percent of the memory recommended to run 64-bit UB.
So far, the current 32-bit installation runs great. System bootup is the fastest I’ve ever experienced. Everything I touch has a snappy response. And, very important to me, the machine operates at a much cooler temperature than before.
Before I installed UB, I was running the 32-bit distribution of Kubuntu 18.04. Doing almost nothing at all with software, temperatures in the componentry would routinely hit 80C-85C, and the fan would be in overdrive constantly. The keyboard would be almost too hot to touch.
Now, as I type this, my system is running very comfortably (and quietly) at 53C – even though Budgie, like Kubuntu, is built upon Ubuntu 18.04.
Weird. Anyway, whatever I do, I don’t want to return to the days of 85C temps. And I worry that installing the 64-bit distro of UB would introduce stress that would push the temps back up into the danger zone.
Or maybe not? I’m too much of a noob to know whether 32- or 64-bit makes any difference in that regard.
I have reasons to think switching to a 64-bit setup might be beneficial. The current, 32-bit setup has some quirks: Trackpad performance is very poor; the Gedit text editor is stuck in always-on-top mode (opening or clicking another window does not send the text editor behind the selected window); and there were the aforementioned problems with UB’s software app failing to install the Google Play Music desktop player.
But again, I don’t know if any of those issues have any connection to 32- or 64-bit OS modes.
I know Chromium requires 64-bit, but I don’t use Chromium and prefer Firefox anyway. I’m not a gamer, but I would like to install Steam to access some of the low-wattage, old-guy games that I would enjoy revisiting, but Steam requires 64-bit. So, there’s that.
So, for now, I have the 64-bit installation locked and loaded, and my finger is on the trigger. I just haven’t decided whether to pull it.