Greetings Dear readers! Today you will learn all about bit depth of the system. This will be another building block in your computer knowledge base. Many are confused about the bitness of operating systems and do not even know how to determine it on their PC. We will help you understand what the bit depth of the system is, what bit depths are, what is the difference between them.
What is digitization anyway? In computer science bit depth is the number of bits that can be simultaneously processed by a given device (in our case, the OS). To date, there are only two bit depths of the operating system. This 32 bit And 64-bit. This means that a 32-bit operating system can only process 32 bits of information at a time. And, accordingly, a 64-bit system is twice as large, i.e. 64 bits of information. But this is not the only and not the most important difference between OS of different bit depths.
There are more pluses and they are very convincing, as you will now see, but there are options in which the winning choice will be x32 systems.
ways find out the bitness of the system installed on the computer a lot. For each OS, they naturally radically differ. You and I will find out the bit depth in operating rooms Windows systems, and also, "as a bonus", on Linux OS. But first, let's deal with the designations of the bit depth of the system adopted in the it sphere.
As you probably guessed from the article, a 32-bit OS is referred to as x32, and 64-bit OS as x64. But very often a 32-bit system is referred to as x86. On the Internet, some users understand x32 and x86 as the same system. It is not right. x86 is the microprocessor architecture and hardware platform. It can be applied to both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
The fact is that in the name of the first processors Intel 86 was always assigned at the end (for example, I8086 or 80386, etc.) In the future, even when processors from Intel began to be called Pentium, the platform continued to be designated that way. From there, this incorrect designation has survived to this day. The correct notation for 32-bit systems should be x86_32 and for 64-bit respectively x86_64 or just x32 and x64.
On Windows of all versions, the bit depth can be found simply by clicking right click mouse by label My computer and choosing from context menu paragraph " Properties". The system window will open. 
In this window, in the item " System type" and will be indicated bit depth of your system.
On XP, the bit depth in this paragraph will be indicated only if the system 64 bit.
Basically the user linux should by default know such trifles. But suddenly, if he forgot, I'll remind you. There are several ways find out the capacity of the system linux
. We will consider only one.
Let's use the terminal. You can open it through the panel by going to " Applications->Standard->Terminal" or the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + Alt + T .
Type uname -m in the terminal and press Enter 
The machine name and system bitness will be displayed.
Original: How to Check if Your Linux System is 32-bit or 64-bit
Author: Lori Kaufman
Publication date: October 2014
Translation: Semenenko V.
Transfer date: May 2015
It is always useful to know at least the basic characteristics of the operating system under which you have to work on a computer. For example, you may need to know the bitness of the operating system - 32-bit or 64-bit? This is for the case when, when installing an additional program, you need to choose which bit program you need to download in order to install it on the system.
Of course, the Ubuntu Software Center has a large number of a variety of programs for the operating system ubuntu linux. However, sometimes you may need to install a program from a third-party source that offers both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the same program. And which version of the program to choose in this case?
This article will describe several ways to determine whether the Linux operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit. Some of these methods provide even more information than just the bitness of the system.
The first two methods use the uname console command, which displays the required information in the terminal window. If you want to get more information about the system, you need to run the uname command with the -a flag:
$ uname -a
As a result, the terminal window will display information in the following order:
In the list displayed by the command, the bitness of the system is the first digits after the local time of the machine (images in the article are clickable):
For example, if the system is 64-bit, then in the console it will be indicated as x86_64 ; if the system is 32-bit, then in the console it will be indicated as i686 or i386 . Note that in the output of the uname program, the type of CPU and platform are indicated in exactly the same way as the bitness of the operating system.
If using the uname command you need to get only the bitness of the operating system, then just run it in a terminal window with the -m flag:
$ uname -m
This command will display the name of the machine and, in addition, show the bitness of the operating system - 32-bit (i686 or i386 ) or 64-bit (x86_64 ):
The arch console command is the same as the uname command with the -m flag. The terminal window will also display the bit depth of the operating system - 32-bit (i686 or i386) or 64-bit (x86_64). To do this, enter the command name arch in the console and run it by pressing the Enter key:
Another console command for displaying information about the bitness of the operating system is the file command with the special argument /sbin/init . In the terminal window, you need to enter the following command:
$file /sbin/init
The console will display a lot of information, from which in this case only the first line is needed (more precisely, the beginning of this line) - ... ELF 64-bit LSB ... :
If for some reason the use console commands unacceptable, you can use the graphical utilities available with any Linux operating system.
Translator's note: in this case, be prepared for the fact that in different Desktop Environments (GNOME Shell, Cinnamon, Xfce, KDE, Unity) and Window Managers (Enlightenment, Fluxbox, Xfce, and so on), the location of the necessary information may be different each time. Console utilities are more versatile in this regard.
Consider obtaining information about the bitness of the operating system using the example Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon. In the main menu of the system, select the "System Settings" item. In the "System Settings" window that opens, we find the "System Info" icon in the "Hardware" section. A window of the same name will open with information about the operating Linux system:
In the first line "Operating System" we see the type of the operating system and its capacity.
Computer architecture(eng. Computer architecture) - the structure of a computer that determines the processing of information and the principles of interaction technical means and software.
Computer RAM (RAM, RAM). Computer RAM is abbreviated as RAM(random access memory) or RAM(random access memory - memory with random access).
What is digitization? Bit depth - the ability to simultaneously process a certain number of bits.
All systems linux exist in two versions - 32-bit And 64-bit.
Architectural differences between 32
And 64-bit versions linux, of course, there is.
The most important features and differences that directly relate to the user and which one has to face:
1. The maximum amount of random access memory (RAM).
2. Bitness of the operating system (32 or 64-bit).
3. Processor capacity.
The maximum amount of RAM.
32 bit operating system can use, "see" no more than 4 GB of RAM. This is the most important difference, and the most significant. If your computer has random access memory (RAM) - 2 GB, That 32 bit the operating system works with such a volume normally.
64-bit operating system can work with much more ABOUT more memory - up to 192 GB.
If you are on a computer with 4 GB RAM will work under 32-bit OS, then she simply will not see such a volume. All she can use is about 3.5 GB from 4 GB. It cannot provide the rest of the volume for running programs. Of course, if you install on a computer with 8 GB RAM, say, and at the same time you will remain on 32 bit system, then she will also not see more 3.5 GB from the total installed volume and the remaining 4.5 GB will simply remain unused.
What features does a 64-bit system have?
Visually, none. Those. outwardly, this is an ordinary OS that does not stand out from 32 bit option.
Technically, there are small differences. The first thing, in fact, 64-bit OS"sees" large amounts of memory and knows how to work with them. Second, it allows you to run 64-bit applications(32-bit - no).
Processor speed.
Accordingly, in order to be able to set 64-bit Linux, your processor must support 64-bit instructions (otherwise you won't even be able to start installing 64-bit Linux). These instructions may be called differently: Intel-IA64, AMD-AMD64.
To determine what bitness of the processor (32 or 64-bit) of your computer, run the following command in the terminal:
To check the architecture of the installed Linux OS on your computer, run one of the following commands in a terminal.
In the process of getting to know and using a computer for a long time, many users are faced with the issue of the bitness of the operating system. Today there are 2 types of OS bitness: x32 and x64. First of all, the bitness of the system is necessary when installing a certain group of programs that are available in two versions, as well as when choosing a distribution kit for installing the OS on a computer.
Bit depth is the ability of the processor to process and execute commands in a certain bit mode.
Main technical differences between x32 and x64 for the user are quite significant and have a lot of nuances during installation, we will talk about their differences and features below.
Some people think that if most programs are written under the x32 architecture, then there is no point in installing an x64 system, but this is fundamentally wrong.
Note that x32 applications can be installed on an x64 operating system, but if the opposite is true, then no.
Separately, consider the cases with computers whose RAM is exactly 4 GB. The fact is that in this case, many install an x64-bit system in order to experience all the so-called "advantages" of this bit depth, and also in order not to lose half a gigabyte of memory. But the fact is that we, in turn, would strongly recommend that you give preference to an OS with x32-bit. The fact is that x64 system covers the unused half megabyte of x32 system, however, for its work it takes more than this amount, which makes such an installation impractical.
When the amount of RAM does not exceed 4 GB, and the processor is running in x32 mode, then there is nothing left but to install x32 OS.
You can get the most accurate answer to the question of the bitness of the system in the information section. To do this, call the side menu in
How to find out what bitness the processor (32 or 64-bit) of your computer
To begin with, let's define what bit depth is and why this data can be useful to you. Bit depth indicates how many bits the processor can process at the same time.
All linux systems are available in two variations - for 32-bit processors and for 64-bit ones. Of course, such a division did not appear just like that. Some of the most important differences that every user may encounter are:
If you are working on a Linux system, then you can easily find out the bitness of your system and processor. To know exactly what bitness your processor is, enter the command in the terminal:
Detailed information will appear on the screen, among which the bit depth of your processor will be indicated.
If you want to know what bit depth your system is installed, then just use the command in the terminal.
