[Beowulf] 32 bit or 64bit pkgs re /usr/local over NFS is okay, Joe

[Tim Cutts]

On 7 Jul 2008, at 11:29 am, Carsten Aulbert wrote:

>
>
> Jon Aquilina wrote:
>> so what your telling me to make sure im running 64bit bins is to  
>> check
>> the /usr/bin. if im not im best compiling from source?
>
> Well other possiblities are:
>
> look at the output of uname -a
>
> if you get i686 you are running a 32bit kernel if the output contains
> x64_64 you are running a 64 bit kernel (sometimes uname -m tells you  
> the
> same).

That's unreliable.  It's possible to run a 64-bit kernel with a 32-bit  
userland, so just because uname returns x86_64 that doesn't mean you  
can definitely run 64-bit userland binaries.

> For Debian/*buntu: see if you can install ia32 packages. These are
> compatibility packages to run 32bit binaries under 64bit systems.
> Obviously those are not needed on 32bit systems and hence not  
> available
> - as far as I know.

The cast-iron way to do it on Debian/Ubuntu is the output of:

dpkg --print-architecture

That will print "i386" for 32-bit Intel, and "amd64" for x86_64.   
Obviously for other supported architectures it prints other things.   
It will print the correct thing regardless of whether the kernel is  
32- or 64-bit.

Tim


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