How to determine 64-bit operating system compliance

Windows

Click on Start -> Run, and type dxdiag. If a Windows dialog box is displayed asking if you want to verify your drivers, you can safely click no and continue. When the program has finished loading, you should see something similar to one of the following images:

or or

Note that the Operating System line, refers to Windows <some version> x64 or 64-bit edition. The last window specifies the processor Itanium, which is a 64-bit processor.

Mac

Select About this Mac from the Apple menu. The text below Mac OS X will give the operating system version, and the Processor line will give you the processor type.

Mac OS X 10.5 (or greater) is a 64-bit operating system. Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Xeon, and PowerPC G5 are 64-bit processors. However, 64-bit Stata for Mac is available only for 64-bit Intel-based Macs.

All currently shipping Macs have a 64-bit processor and a 64-bit operating system.

Linux

Linux users should issue the uname command. Depending on the platform, you may see:

[cph@gaylord ~]$ uname -a
Linux gaylord.stata.com 2.6.11-1.27_FC3 #1 Tue May 17 20:24:57 EDT 2005 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[cph@caddo ~]$ uname -a
Linux caddo.stata.com 2.6.9-5.0.5.EL #1 SMP Fri Apr 8 14:20:58 EDT 2005 ia64 ia64 ia64 GNU/Linux

[cph@tango ~]$ uname -a
Linux tango.stata.com 2.6.10-1.771_FC2smp #1 SMP Mon Mar 28 01:10:51 EST 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

In the above listing, 'gaylord' (x86_64 GNU/Linux) and 'caddo' (ia64 GNU/Linux) are 64-bit compliant. 'tango' (i386 GNU/Linux) is only a 32-bit platform.

Unix (Sun Solaris, IBM-AIX)

• Sun Solaris
  
  Sun’s platforms transitioned to 64-bit over a period of time, making identification of the platform for 64-bit compliance tricky. As quoted from Sun:

  Sun has implemented its 64-bit operating system in phases. The Solaris 2.5 Operating Environment provided support for increased precision with 64-bit math and also included support for 64-bit asynchronous I/O. The Solaris 2.6 Operating Environment added support for large datasets with large (1 Terabyte) filesystems while allowing co-existence of 32-bit and 64-bit files. Beginning with the Solaris 7 Operating Environment, Sun introduced support for large virtual address spaces with a full 64-bit operating system. Sun began shipping 64-bit hardware in 1995. By phasing in operating system support for 64-bits Sun has provided 64-bit features as the market has demanded them while guaranteeing compatibility for existing 32-bit applications.

  To determine what kind of binaries your Solaris machine can run, try the following:

  eden:/home/cph: isainfo -v
  64-bit sparcv9 applications
  32-bit sparc applications
  

  Above we see that our Solaris machine is capable of running 32-bit as well as 64-bit applications. If isainfo fails, running a 64-bit application on your Sun will generally not be possible, unless of course isainfo is not in your path or has not been installed. You can also use the uname command to gleen more information:

  eden:/home/cph: uname -a
  SunOS eden 5.8 Generic_108528-05 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-5_10

  lagrange:/usr/users/cph: uname -a
  SunOS lagrange 5.5.1 Generic_103640-29 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-1

  SunOS/Solaris versions map to the following:
  
  

  SunOS	SOLARIS
  5.3	2.3
  5.4	2.4
  5.5	2.5
  5.5.1	2.5.1
  5.6	2.6
  5.7 or greater is 64-bit compliant	7 or greater is 64-bit compliant

  
  While all UltraSparc processors are capable of 64-bit computing, the OS release level may be the limiting factor. In the above excerpt, 'eden' (SunOS 5.8) is a fully compliant 64-bit platform and 'lagrange' (SunOS 5.5.1) is a 64-bit UltraSparc limited to 32-bit computing.
  
  
• IBM-AIX
  
  The getconf command will return the configuration of your machine. Since we are only looking for the kernel parameters, you should issue:

  [cph@anna ~]$ getconf -a | grep KERN
  KERNEL_BITMODE: 64

  If that should fail or not return a result, try the file command:

  [cph@anna ~]$ file /usr/lib/boot/unix*
  /usr/lib/boot/unix: 64-bit XCOFF executable or object module not stripped
  /usr/lib/boot/unix_64: 64-bit XCOFF executable or object module not stripped
  /usr/lib/boot/unix_mp: executable (RISC System/6000) or object module not stripped
  /usr/lib/boot/unix_up: executable (RISC System/6000) or object module not stripped
  

  [cph@ozona ~]$ file /usr/lib/boot/unix*
  /usr/lib/boot/unix: symbolic link to /usr/lib/boot/unix_up.
  /usr/lib/boot/unix_kdb: executable (RISC System/6000) or object module not stripped
  /usr/lib/boot/unix_up: executable (RISC System/6000) or object module not stripped

  We can see that 'anna' is a 64-bit capable platform and 'ozona' is only 32-bit.