I saw some software have installation bundle/rpm for specific architechture like i386,i586,i686,x86_64...how can I determine exactly which package is suitable for my machine...and how could i determine that...primarily i want to see if my CPU falls into anyone of the above mentioned category or not. I did "cat /proc/cpuinfo" but couldn't found any information related that..i am giving the output here...please anyone help...

thanks and regards


processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 1998.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 5322.83

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 1998.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 5319.98

uname -m

i386->i486->i586->i686

if you have a i486 machine, you can use i386 and i486 software. If you have a i686, you can use i686, i586, i486 and i386.
if you have x86_64, you can only use x86_64 software, unless you install multilib hack, but that depends on your distro

Well, according to the CPU family you have an i686 compatible CPU.
The model name (Core2 Duo) means you have an Intel with EMT64, so in fact it would be compatible with x86_64.

SO - you can install an x86_64 system or an i686 system. i686 should work fine for pretty much everything. x86_64 would give you a great system but you may have to sacrifice things like some proprietary software (Adobe Flash + plugin, Skype, and a few others). It is possible to install for x86_64 and then add 32-bit compatibility libraries so you can still run some 32-bit proprietary binaries.

I'm pretty sure your hardware covers all the above architectures. The "lm" in flags means "x86_64" and I think support for the others is all implied by x86_64.

In order to run software of a specific architecture, you also need a Linux kernel that supports that architecture.

Someone already suggested "uname -m" to find out what architecture the kernel itself uses.

If the kernel isn't x86_64 then no application program can be x86_64. Other than that, you probably can have any combination within the list you provided (686 applications on a 586 kernel, 386 application on an x86_64 kernel, etc.)

You might have some unusual distribution that doesn't support that (allows only x86_64 applications when the kernel is x86_64). But that isn't likely.

Thank you very much...the information is really useful