I used uname command and obtained:

Linux rufusruffcutt 3.2.0-35-generic-pae #55-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 5 18:04:39 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

What do this mean and how can I tell if this is a 32- or 64-bit kernel version?

2

3 Answers

From man uname:

-a, --all print all information, in the following order, except omit -p and -i if unknown:

 -s, --kernel-name print the kernel name -n, --nodename print the network node hostname -r, --kernel-release print the kernel release -v, --kernel-version print the kernel version -m, --machine print the machine hardware name -p, --processor print the processor type or "unknown" -i, --hardware-platform print the hardware platform or "unknown" -o, --operating-system print the operating system

So in your case:

Linux rufusruffcutt 3.2.0-35-generic-pae #55-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 5 18:04:39 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux 

So you have a machine hw which is i686, a processor type i686, and a hw platform which is i386.

In Ubuntu builds, i386 are the 32-bit builds; in a 64-bit system they would be x86_64.

Using uname -i should give you just the hardware platform.

Instead you can use the getconf command:

getconf LONG_BIT

It will shows you your kernel whether it is 32 bit or 64 bit.

i686 is the name of an Intel processor architecture with 32 bit word length.

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