Hi. Do you know how i can find out if a 64 bit or 32 bit kernel is installed in my system?
Thank you in advance
uname -a
if you see x86_64, it’s 64bit, if you see i686, it’s 32bit
It;s a 32bit kernel installed!!! Why? I bought my laptop 20 days ago and i can’t find a reason why suse installed the 32 bit kernel.
Is it possible to use now a 64 bit kernel version?
Do you know if the nvidia driver works better in a 32 or 64 bit version?
You could use the 64bit version if your processor supports it, depends.
However if you ask me I consider the 64bit version optional, you might see a performance boost but its not like hopping from a Ford Pinto to a Ferrari.
Not all processors support 64-bit. You might have one of those CPUs that don’t, even though the laptop is new. You can check if the processor is 64-bit like this:
grep -w lm /proc/cpuinfo
If you get any output, it’s 64-bit capable. If not, it’s only 32-bit.
I know mine does, I have a late model P4 on my compy.
64bit can run if I have hyperthreading enabled.
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use the command arch to see what architecture have touy processor, and I
suppose that SuSE choose a 32 bit kernel because your installation media
is for 32 bits or because you processor is not 64 bit processor
VampirD
General Failure is the supreme commander of the Microsoft army.
All operation made by this army ends on him.
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That is my cpu processor
Intel Core Duo T4300
Btw my laptop comes with windows 7 64 bit installed…
So why do you think opensuse installed a 32 bit kernel? So what should i do know ? Is it possible to upgrade to a 64 kernel?
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64-bit and hyperthreading are not required to work one with another…
this is probably a coincidence.
Good luck.
TaraIkeda wrote:
> I know mine does, I have a late model P4 on my compy.
> 64bit can run if I have hyperthreading enabled.
>
>
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Intel Core Duos can run 64bit, but its still optional.
its up to you if you want to try it or not, but it will need you to download and install the 64bit version.
And you probably installed openSUSE 32bit, as its the default option on the download page, so openSUSE did not install 32bit, you did.
And the 64bit is not a true “upgrade” in a traditional sense.
Its an optional kernel that might or might not give you better performance.
Like I said its not like going from a Ford Pinto to a Ferrari
Did you use the box set or a downloaded DVD? The box set dual layer DVD contains both archs. If downloaded you have to choose the arch you want. If you put in the 32-bit DVD then you would get 32-bit arch, naturally.
He/she could have used the live CD too
Anyhow he/she probably missed this:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5058/selectm.th.jpg](http://img13.imageshack.us/i/selectm.jpg/)
The option is there for all the install version medias
So yeh the error goes to the OP, however its easy to miss if this is his/her first install of openSUSE.
But like I said the 64bit version is optional
Why am I not surprised to read this from you? 
Well we really dont know the full needs of the OP, also there are a few apps that dont support 64bit.
Flash in 64 is still shaky for some folk too, so I still say its optional.
Hey I did try the 64bit versions of linux out before but I see there are one or two apps I like that I like that dont have 64bit packages and it can be a pain getting them working when you want them as most of that is commandline still.
I wish there was a gui that can help install 34bit apps in 64
Never had any problems with 32-bit flash since the plugin was introduced. The only other major apps that don’t support 64-bit are skype and I forget the other one so I must not use it. And games, which I don’t play. Skype works if you install the 32-bit libraries it needs. Everything else works for me. But then I have very few proprietary apps on Linux. But of course everyone should do their own evaluation.
Well yes trying the 64bit version is harmless, I am not saying not to use it.
I am just saying that it might or might not suit the needs of the OP.
If the OP is having issues with his/her graphics card as he/she asked about Nvidia well if the OP has issues with it in 32bit the issues might not go away in 64bit, in fact it might be worse as certain graphics card drivers are not there in 64bit but since we dont know the OP’s graphics card model we really dont know.
I am not dissing 64bit, but I do know it has drawbacks as does 32bit.
But for me 32bit is very viable if it is working well, and I have no issues running it.
I also had no issues running 64bit either but seeing some of my favorite apps have no 64bit support and I need a terminal to install those apps I fell back to 32bit as I rather not touch the commandline unless it is 100% needed.
Is it possible to upgrade to 64bit version os withouth harassing my system configuration?
No, you have to do an reinstall. But you can preserve your user directories provided you have a separate partition for /home. But always backup, just in case.
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but if install a 64 bit kernel zypper should upgrade the rest of the
software, don’t?
VampirD
No in elenath hîlar nan hâd gîn
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Doesn’t work that way. Even though the kernel is a free-standing binary that is the first thing loaded by the boot loader, it requires quite a few packages installed to provide all the surrounding infrastructure to boot and run the system. If you try to update all those packages on a live, running system, the probability is very close to 1.0 that something will break, and the update will stop dead there and leave you with a broken system that’s neither here nor there.