i386 or amd64 ?

[Andrew Pantyukhin]

On 2/15/06, Panter V. <panter at as.ro> wrote:
> I want to use this computer as a development server and firewall. I will
> run Apache 2, PHP 5, MySQL, Samba, an FTP server ...

You'll have no problems with these programs on amd64. Printer
drivers are probably platform-independent

> At a later time I would like to use this computer as a workstation as
> well and I will need KDE, OpenOffice 2, Thunderbird, Firefox, Eclipse ...

You'll probably want to use i386 on a workstation for
various compatibility issues. Difference in speed is close
to unmeasurable. Give amd64 a shot, but you might
find a show-stopper and will have to switch to i386.

So if you have some time to experiment, try amd64
anyway. If you need to set up a box that you don't
want to mess with once again, you'll have to stick to
i386.