Ubuntu

Processor information

Asked by Matt B

I've loaded Ubuntu 6.06 on to a IBM laptop running a Pentium 4 processor, or so it says on the sticker(!), but I cannot seem to find any information regarding the processor architecture when looking through Device Manager. In fact Device Manager seems a little sketchy on detail relasting to the system's hardware - is there a another way for finding out more information on hardware devices?

Many thanks, in advance, for any help given.

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Oscar (osh-nbit) said : 		#1

cat /proc/cpuinfo
That should tell you quite a lot about your cpu.

sudo lspci (or sudo lspci -v)
This tells you a lot about your machine.

sudo dmidecode
This tells you quite a bit more about your machine.

All of these commands are quite verbose and not well suited for a computer illiterate.
But they tell you all you want to know (and probably a bit more).

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Matt B (admin-mdbwebdata) said : 		#2

Thanks Oscar - excellent. Lots of helpful information there, although I couldn't see anything about 32 bit or 64 bit - I am guessing the processor is 32 bit but not 100% sure. If you have any further thoughts on that that would be very much appreciated. But, if not, many, many thanks for your help. That has given me a lot to work with.

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Oscar (osh-nbit) said : 		#3

Right.
Here comes a bit more information than you probably want.
Look at the flags in /proc/cpuinfo, if you see a flag called "lm" it means that you indeed do have a 64bit machine. If not, it's 32.
From what I remember if you look in /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-16/include/asm-i386/cpufeature.h you can see a flag like this
#define X86_FEATURE_LM (1*32+29) /* Long Mode (x86-64) */

It indicates that only 64bit machines do have the lm-flag.

IIRC.

Oscar

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Matt B (admin-mdbwebdata) said : 		#4

Thanks Oscar - again, very much appreciated.

I do have an "lm" flag - which suggests that I have a 64bit machine - which in turn makes me wonder whether I should be running a 64bit version of Ubuntu 6.06 if there is one (not sure about that) as there is 7.04.

(Nothing found in /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.20-16/include/asm-i386/).

Thanks, again.

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Oscar (osh-nbit) said : 		#5

That depends.
64-bit machines are mostly useful if you have a lot of memory in them, as the whole memory can be addressed. A lot meaning more than 4GiB.

Yes, there are 64-bit versions of 6.06 (and other versions) and depending on what you need it for it might be good to try it out. However, the 32-bit version does get a lot more testing so you could hit a few snags with the 64-version that isn't there in the other.

I can't really advice one way or the other. It depends on what you need the machine for and how critical it is to you.
Things like "flash" and other apps are only availible in 32-bit, which could be a problem for some.

Having said that, it IS a bit cooler to run a 64-bit OS if you have a 64-bit machine. As long as you don't mind a few roadbumps.

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Matt B (admin-mdbwebdata) said : 		#6

I think I'll stick with the 32 bit version - I don't need to do anything too clever - bit of MySQL, Apache - that's about it as far as the more advanced stuff is concerned.

Thanks for all your help.

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Oscar (osh-nbit) said : 		#7

No worries. Good luck.

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done (mnmarkonissinen) said : 		#8

Thank YOU Oscar ( and your KIND of people ) because of giving ADVICES - a thing which you are NOT forced to do. I REALLY mean this. There is a VERY large bunch of us in the world who LOVE to use computer and also in this case UBUNTU, that is searching a green needle from the golf-field in LACK of knowledge, WITHOUT precious help from YOUR KIND of persons!