64-bit Linux?

Ok, first I'll admit I'm actually new to Linux, but an advanced computer user with many computer science Linux/Unix/Apple friends, so it is not at all foreign, I've just never installed it for myself...

So as you can see my laptop below, I thought I'd make an extra little mini partition and throw Linux up on it.

I just basically wanted to know what are the good, if not what are the best, 64-bit Linux versions out there. I was checking around for NVidia Linux drivers and saw an "AMD64" linux driver and assumed this meant for 64-bit Linux and therefore getting 64-bit driver performance out of your NVidia card, etc... So that is why I am looking for 64-bit Linux, IF there is such a thing and it in turn allows for 32-bit apps like AIM/Firefox to be installed/used and so on... Thanks for the help and sorry if I am a Linux n00b and couldn't read some FAQ somewhere that covered this.

Ahhh I actually just got a suggestion from a friend to try Ubuntu, which has an AMD64 version... so I'm going to go for that.

Yeah, try Ubuntu, if you don't like the WM, try Kubuntu

Vidalinux is kinda nice and a good way to get yourself a bit closer to gentoo, which is incredibly awesome. Straight-out debian would probably work well too.

I personally don't like ubuntu much.

I haven't tried Ubuntu64 but I have tried numerous other 64 bit distros and there are only 3 I have success with, Gentoo, Slamd64, and Fedora Core, in that order.

Ubuntu may be good running 64 bit, but I don't know, I am not an ubuntu/kubuntu fan anyway.... to each his own... many love it, give it a shot, if you don't like it, .... try Slamd64 or Gentoo if you are feeling brave (hard to install).

your sig shows your laptop as havving an ati graphics card. The nvidia drivers will not work then. The ati drivers probally wont work to well either if u wana do anything 3d. I would personally go with gentoo. that seems to be the best 64bit os out there so far. Check out gentoo.org for more info

Gentoo if you are up for a challenging install, otherwise Debian.

Where can you find the Debian 64 bit installation media? I didn't know they had a 64 bit version.

Kanotix64!!!

That's what i'm runnin'. Its great.

If your worried about installing Gentoo been too difficult, I beleive there is a version of the 2005.1 LiveCD that has the beta version of the GUI installer. Once installed Gentoo is a piece of cake to maintain thanks to portage

EDIT: Link

What do you mean 64-bit performance? It just adds more ram the CPU can access.

it also allows 64 bits of data to be processed at once instead of 32... thusly, 64 bit data works a bit faster than 32 bit data.