[OpenIndiana-discuss] How to tell for sure what bit your OS is?

[Alan Coopersmith]

On 05/26/17 04:26 AM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Jonathan Adams <t12nslookup at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Much better than the Linux "file 'which file'" (with back ticks) ...
>>
>
> sudo  file `which file`
> /usr/bin/file:  ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1, dynamically
> linked, not stripped, no debugging information available
>
> Er... looks like one of the techniques has got it wrong
>
> Or does something else explain this?

That works on Linux distros which have separate 32-bit & 64-bit versions
and compile every binary in the OS to match.

That doesn't work on Solaris-derived distros which have a unified 32/64 bit
version that supports binaries of either flavor, and which many programs are
32-bit so they can run on either 32-bit or 64-bit kernels.

As distros drop 32-bit kernel support, they'll likely convert more and more
of their programs to 64-bit, but it can be a gradual process, not a flag day.

For the one I work on (not OI, but "Big Red"), we've been making this conversion
across 5+ years now, and are >90% done in our development trunk, though much
less done in what's been released so far.  I've written far more about the
topic for the terminally curious at:

https://blogs.oracle.com/alanc/moving-oracle-solaris-to-lp64-bit-by-bit
https://blogs.oracle.com/observatory/oracle-solaris-113-progress-on-lp64-conversion

	-alan-