How can I tell if my system is 32 or 64 bit?
My processor has been detected as i686 and i586 and I have a Pentium 4 dualcore processor.

On my AMD64,
cat /proc/cpuinfo

gives, among other things:
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual

dose 32 and 64 even matter..i have 64 bit processor but im installing suse32..

32 bit software will run on a 64 bit machine. In fact software such as OpenOffice only comes in 32bit. There's no reason I have found for not installing 64bit software on an x86_64 machine. I can't quantify but 64bit software is faster on a 64bit machine and the upper limit on memory addressing is higher.

True. So either way it doesn't really matter right now, since you can run both types of applications.

If it's your only machine, it doesn't matter. I have 2 machines, one 64, one 32. On the 32-bit, I have OpenOffice and everything ... on the 64 bit, I have what's optimized for 64-bit only. Run the same program on both machine 64-bit is (appears to me to be) twice as fast. As more packages are optimized for 64-bit, I believe the results will be very successful.

Me? Put a 32 bit app on my 64-bit machine? You must be kidding!!!

When I want to get some programs/packages, they have them listed as 32 bit and 64 bit and I don't know which I should choose because I don't know if my system is 32 or 64 bit.

well i like open office :-D

The command

uname -r

will reveal the kernel you are running and that usually indicates the architecture, amd64 or i386.

i like 32 for the fact of open office..which most people use suse for desktop use..why wouldent u want open office

plese help me with my install prob on my thred "help on install" posted in this section

I am in a situation where I must do that. I run my AMD64 brute as a Linux terminal server. Because 30 or so clients may be running apps on it at the same time, I need maximum throughput so I have everything I can 64bit. Exceptions are needed apps that are only in 32bit so far (maybe by June...)

• OpenOffice
• FreeNX
• Opera (love the interface, although FireFox is not bad)

I have OO and Opera installed in a 32bit chroot on my Debian system. The apps see 32 bit libraries and run as 32 bit. Everything else works as 64 bit for me. Getting these 32 bit apps to print was interesting...

1) it is impossible to run 64 bit apps on 32-bit OS (it does not matter if CPU is 64-bit, if OS is 32-bit)

2) you can't run 32-bit on pure 64-bit OS but:

3) you can run 32-bit apps on hybrid OS:
-hybrid OS is "pure 64-bit" + 32-bit libs added for compatibility

4) memory advantage "counts" above 2GB:
32-bit OS can use more but it will slice memory into smaller chunks, so it is advantegous for app that utilise more than 2GB to run on 64-bit system. However program must be aware that it can use single TB of memory chunks (so it must be 64-bit too)

5) math apps (e.g encryption) will run several times faster on 64-bit OS than 32-bit. Also video apps and a lot more

6) nowdays a lot of 64-bit apps is only recompiled for 64-bit but not optimised, so in fact it may not be (currently) real advantage of using 32-bit apps over 64-bit apps. So what software will profit from 64-bit version specifically? You may need to test it (aside from obvious)

7) AMD64 is faster than similarly clocked 32-bit AMD CPU, thanks to architecture changes


8) 64-bit OS will NOT work with 32-bit drivers. So Any hardware that does not have 64-bit drivers will not work on 64-bit OS

9) can't mix different pieces of software: eg 32-bit FF with 64-bit plugins (or reverse)

So if you need FF with java 1.5 and plugins you need to install
You will have to install 32-bit FF because flash is inly 32-bit, java 1.5 plugin (Sun) is only 32-bit. However mplayer plugin is 32-bit and 64-bit. If installed 32-bit FF you need to install 32-bit mplayer plugin.

10) 64-bit OS is not 2x as fast as 32-bit. In some cases it will be several times, in other no advantage.

RobertP:
I did that command, uname -r and all I got was: 2.13-15.8-smp It did not tell me if I have 32 or 64 bit.

If you've got a dual core processor (intel Pentium4), Does SUSE automatically install as 64 bit?

gym, what is the output of 'uname -a'?

the 'smp' (symetric multi processing i believe) in the output of 'uname -r' means that that the kernel your using is for a multi-cpu processor (dual core), so you that is the correct one you are using.

edit: i notice in your first post you said your cpu is being recognized as i586 and i686?! which one? either way.. this indicates a 32bit CPU.

Wanna see your processor type, kernel, ram & all that kind of stuff, and maybe a cute picture of Tux or your OS logo, as well?

Install linux_logo

Mine says:

Linux Version 2.6.15-1-amd64-k8
Compiled #2 Tue Mar 7 06:53:26 UTC 2006
One 1.99GHz AMD Athlon 64 Processor, 447M RAM
3985.09 Bogomips Total
debian