How can I know if my PC's processor can run 64-bit Linux?

[Uewd]

I want to know if my PC's processor can run 64-bit Linux. How can I do this?
My PC's processor is Intel Core i3 @ 2.53 GHz
Please help.
Thanks.
Uewd.

[arvevans]

Open a terminal screen.
Enter "sudo lshw", it will ask for password.
Scan the resulting hardware listing to see if your CPU and support system is shown as 32 bit or 64 bit.

[slooksterpsv]

I would imagine the Core i3 would be 64-bit. All of AMD's CPUs besides a few of the Semprons, are 64-bit. If that's not, I would be completely surprised.

EDIT:

Yes that's a 64-bit cpu

[walt.smith1960]

You don't have to run lshw with sudo although it's recommended. I got this without logging out and back in as a sudo user:

description: Computer
width: 32 bits
*-core
description: Motherboard
physical id: 0
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 0
size: 4021MiB
*-cpu
product: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor
vendor: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
version: 15.6.2
size: 800MHz
capacity: 800MHz
width: 64 bits

[akand074]

All i3 processors support 64 bit. This is true for the i5 and i7 as well.

[Uewd]

Thank you all for replying. Which Linux OS is better, 32-bit or 64-bit?

[slooksterpsv]

Thank you all for replying. Which Linux OS is better, 32-bit or 64-bit?

Regular normal users will do fine with 32-bit, but if you have 4+ GB of RAM I recommend 64-bit, especially if you do any sort of virtualization or that. 4GB of RAM will be seen as like 3.75 or 3.25 in a 32-bit OS, while in 64-bit it can see more than 4GB of RAM.

[cbowman57]

Regular normal users will do fine with 32-bit, but if you have 4+ GB of RAM I recommend 64-bit, especially if you do any sort of virtualization or that. 4GB of RAM will be seen as like 3.75 or 3.25 in a 32-bit OS, while in 64-bit it can see more than 4GB of RAM.

+1, when I compare them it 'feels' like the 32-bit is faster & has a slightly smaller memory footprint.

YMMV.

[Blasphemist]

The default 32 bit kernel for natty seems to be the pae kernel and it seems to be causing video issues in some configurations. The pae kernel allows 32 bit cpu's to use 4 GB or more memory. That is the case for some 32 bit cpu's at least.

Linux
The Linux kernel includes full PAE mode support starting with version 2.3.23,[6] enabling access of up to 64 GB of memory on 32-bit machines. A PAE-enabled Linux-kernel requires that the CPU also support PAE. As of 2009,[7] some common Linux distributions have started to use a PAE-enabled kernel as the distribution-specific default[7] because it adds the NX bit.

The above is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

I believe the 64 bit kernel is faster and has smaller memory footprint but you can find people on both sides of that as shown already in this thread. I run the 64 bit on my fairly old Toshiba Sattelite L505-S6946.

[cbowman57]

I believe the 64 bit kernel is faster and has smaller memory footprint but you can find people on both sides of that as shown already in this thread. I run the 64 bit on my fairly old Toshiba Sattelite L505-S6946.

Might actually be due to slight variations between machines. All I can do is comment on what I've noticed but I have no doubt that others have had a different experience.