<p>When I type <code>uname -a</code>, it gives the following output.</p>

<pre><code>Linux mars 2.6.9-67.0.15.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Apr 22 13:50:33 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
</code></pre>

<p>How can I know from this that the given OS is 32 or 64 bit?</p>

<p>This is useful when writing <code>configure</code> scripts, for example: what architecture am I building for?</p>

If you were running a 64 bit platform you would see x86_64 or something very similar in the output from
uname
-a
To get your specific machine hardware name run
```
```
uname -m
```
```
You can also call
```
```
getconf LONG_BIT
```
```
which returns either 32 or 64