  The charged particle multiplicity distribution is one of the first
measurements that ALICE will be able to perform. The knowledge of this basic
property at a new energy is needed to configure Monte Carlo generators
correctly with the aim of understanding the background of other, especially
rare, processes including new physics. It allows to study the scaling behaviour
and to verify model predictions. The unfolding of the measurement is a
non-trivial task due to the finite precision and acceptance of the detector.
Solutions are based on chi2 minimization or iteratively using Bayes' theorem.
Both approaches to unfold the spectrum are presented. Furthermore, the
capabilities of the SPD fast OR trigger are shown that enable physics at very
high multiplicities.
