Check if you are running 32bit OS/CPU or 64 bit OS/CPU on your Linux Machine

Hi Linux Users, I will elaborate some basic tricks to know your CPU configuration on your Linux System. Many times I had came across a unique question from Linux Users that how should I know that I am using 32 bit CPU/OS or 64 bit CPU/OS? Definitely I am here to know you answer for this question but before that we have to understand some points. They are as follows.

   1.    We can run 32 bit operating system on 64 bit CPU.

   2.     We can run 64 bit operating system on 64 bit CPU.

   3.    We cannot run  64 bit operating system on 32 bit CPU.

   4.  We can run 32 bit operating system on 32 bit CPU.

Once we are clear with these points now we are ready to check of our CPU is  32 bit or 64 bit.

How to check if CPU is 64 bit supported or not, basically there are two ways:-

1.Method I:-

Use lscpu command to check if it supports multiple CPU operation modes(either 16, 32 or 64 bit mode).

Fig.1 lscpu command

As a normal/root user execute below command

     lscpu | grep op-mode

Sample output on a 32-bit processor

Fig.2 Using lscpu with grep

If you observe the first output will say that your CPU supports both 32-bit as well as 64 bit operating systems. This indicates that its 64-bit processor from our above 4 rules. But in the second machine it says only 32-bit CPU mode which indicates its a 32 bit processor.

Method 2:-

Use proc file system, CPU info to get the processor type.

   grep -w lm /proc/cpuinfo

Sample output on a 32-bit processor when searching for lm(long mode) bit is set or not.

Fig.3 Checking for Long mode

If you dont get any output that indicates its not a 32 bit processor.

How to check if my Operating system is a 64-bit or 32-bit?

Before knowing about this you should know about i386, i486 etc naming convention.

What is difference between i386, i486, i586, and i686 OS?

They are the names given by software industry to some softwares for different Intel architectures. If we say i386, its Intel 80386 processor, also known as the i386, or just 386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. If I say i486 it is an Intel 80486, i586 is a 80586 and i686 is a 80686 processor. In short they are called as x86 family which are of 32 bit processor. And for 64 bit OS you will get x86_64.

Option 1: check with uname command if your OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. 

   uname -m

Fig.4 checking Architecture with uname

   uname -p

Fig.5 checking Architecture with uname

Option 2: Check with lscpu command as below.

   lscpu | grep -i arch

Fig.6 Checking Architecture with lscpu command

Option 3: Check with getconf command as shown below

    getconf LONG_BIT

Sample output for 32 bit OS

Fig.7 Checking CPU configuration in Bits

Please let us know if you know any other way to get OS and Processor processing bit details.