On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 15:20 -0600, Jonathan Berry wrote:
On 11/11/05, Gerhard Magnus <magnus(a)agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I don't know if there's a short answer to this... but what do
"32 bit"
> and "64 bit" refer to and how can I tell which applies to my computer?
>
When referring to hardware, 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the bit width
of the general purpose registers in the CPU of a computer. When
referring to software, they refer to software that has been compiled
to run on a 32-bit or 64-bit processor.
If you do not know which applies to your computer, chances are 32-bit
does, as it is the most prevalent. More and more computers coming out
are 64-bit capable, though, so this may become less true. 64-bit
would apply to your computer if you have a new AMD CPU (with the
exception of the original Sempron) or a new Intel CPU that supports
EM64T (Intel's name for their implementation of AMD64 or the x86_64
architecture). Even with a 64-bit CPU, in the case of AMD64 or EM64T,
you can still choose to run a 32-bit operating system or software, so
that is where it can get the most confusing. Look at /proc/cpuinfo
for detailed information on your CPU. If you still cannot figure it
out, post the contents of that file here, and someone can probably
help you out.
The only documentation I have is installation instructions for the Intel
Pentium 4 processor that aren't very revealing (despite being in 15
languages.) Here's my /proc/cpuinfo file:
[76] ~ $ more /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 3400.796
cache size : 2048 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov
pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm pni
monitor ds_cpl est cid cx16 xtpr
Thanks for the help!
Jerry