I've passed on the upgrade to x64 distros, despite every box in my inventory other than my Eee PC 900 supporting them. The trouble with binary packages etc. seemed to be substantially worse than the minor benefits at the time to making the switch. Even today, various 32-bit OSes (Linux & 'doze alike) seem to dominate both at my current and last job, and only seem to be swapped out for 64-bit OSes when dealing with obscene amounts of RAM or specialized scientific routines.
Is there something I'm missing, though, that has a dramatic impact on the desktop-user's experience? Are there substantial speed gains to be had, either on AMD or Intel Core * architectures? Is there any practical benefit at all to making the switch other than the specialized workstations and servers mentioned above?
Thanks in advance, Sean Crago Kathmandu