[Nix-dev] Re: CPU type misdetection

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

Ludovic Courtès wrote:

>>> Recently, I was told that the `lm' flag (for "long mode") in
>>> /proc/cpuinfo roughly means "x86-64".  My laptop has an Intel Core 2
>>> Duo, which has this flags, and really is "x86-64".  However, to Nix, my
>>> system is `i686-linux' although it could/should be `x86_64-linux'.
>> What does uname -a say?
> 
> i686
> 
>> If you're running a 32-bit kernel, then it's an i686-linux system, even if the
>> CPU is 64-bit capable.  This is a correct determination since you won't be able
>> to run 64-bit programs.
> 
> Indeed.  Supposedly, I should have chosen the x86-64 install CD in the
> first place, as Marc suggested.  It probably isn't reasonable to expect
> the installation procedure to say "hey, did you know your CPU is
> actually an x86-64 one?"...

Well, just because you have a 64-bit capable CPU (they all are nowadays) doesn't
mean you want a 64-bit OS...  It just makes all your pointers take up twice as
much space ;-)

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/