I wanted to find out if my CPU was 64 bit capable. It was a few years old, so probably not, but I figured I should be able to get linux to tell me without having to lookup the hardware spec of the box and then check the Intel website.

First I checked the cpuinfo data that linux provides (in this case, my trusty CentOS 5.2 installation):

[andy@vm rpm]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
stepping        : 9
cpu MHz         : 2386.429
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts cpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid xtpr
bogomips        : 4775.09
processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 15
model           : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
stepping        : 9
cpu MHz         : 2386.429
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts cpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid xtpr
bogomips        : 4772.09

Interesting, but no smoking 64 bit gun.

I then found a utility called CPUID which seemed to report much more interesting data.

First fetch the rpm: wget http://www.etallen.com/cpuid/cpuid-20060917-1.i386.rpm
Then install it: sudo yum --nogpgcheck localinstall cpuid-20060917-1.i386.rpm

At this point, yum whimpered with

Existing lock /var/run/yum.pid: another copy is running as pid xxxx
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...
Another app is currently holding the yum lock; waiting for it to exit...

I checked around to see who was holding the lock, but i seems it was just a left over from some prior operation. So as root, I deleted the file /var/run/yum.pid and tried the install again.

This time it worked fine and I was then able to run CPUID:

CPU:
vendor_id = "GenuineIntel"
version information (1/eax):
processor type  = primary processor (0)
family          = Intel Pentium 4/Pentium D/Pentium Extreme Edition/Celeron/Xeon/Xeon MP/Itanium2, AMD Athlon 64/Athlon XP-M/Opteron/Sempron/Turion (15)
model           = 0x2 (2)
stepping id     = 0x9 (9)
extended family = 0x0 (0)
extended model  = 0x0 (0)
(simple synth)  = Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood D1) / Xeon (Prestonia D1) / Mobile Pentium 4 (Northwood D1) / Mobile Pentium 4 Processor-M (Northwood D1) / Celeron 478-pin, .13um
miscellaneous (1/ebx):
process local APIC physical ID = 0x1 (1)
cpu count                      = 0x2 (2)
CLFLUSH line size              = 0x8 (8)
brand index                    = 0xb (11)
brand id = 0x0b (11): Intel Xeon, .13um
feature information (1/edx):
x87 FPU on chip                        = true
virtual-8086 mode enhancement          = true
debugging extensions                   = true
page size extensions                   = true
time stamp counter                     = true
RDMSR and WRMSR support                = true
physical address extensions            = true
machine check exception                = true
CMPXCHG8B inst.                        = true
APIC on chip                           = true
SYSENTER and SYSEXIT                   = true
memory type range registers            = true
PTE global bit                         = true
machine check architecture             = true
conditional move/compare instruction   = true
page attribute table                   = true
page size extension                    = true
processor serial number                = false
CLFLUSH instruction                    = true
debug store                            = true
thermal monitor and clock ctrl         = true
MMX Technology                         = true
FXSAVE/FXRSTOR                         = true
SSE extensions                         = true
SSE2 extensions                        = true
self snoop                             = true
hyper-threading / multi-core supported = true
therm. monitor                         = true
IA64                                   = false
pending break event                    = true
feature information (1/ecx):
PNI/SSE3: Prescott New Instructions    = false
MONITOR/MWAIT                          = false
CPL-qualified debug store              = false
VMX: virtual machine extensions        = false
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology    = false
thermal monitor 2                      = false
context ID: adaptive or shared L1 data = true
cmpxchg16b available                   = false
xTPR disable                           = true
cache and TLB information (2):
0x50: instruction TLB: 4K & 2M/4M pages, 64 entries
0x5b: data TLB: 4K & 4M pages, 64 entries
0x66: L1 data cache: 8K, 4-way, 64 byte lines
0x40: No L3 cache
0x70: Trace cache: 12K-uop, 8-way
0x7b: L2 cache: 512K, 8-way, sectored, 64 byte lines
extended feature flags (0x80000001/edx):
SYSCALL and SYSRET instructions        = false
execution disable                      = false
64-bit extensions technology available = false
Intel feature flags (0x80000001/ecx):
LAHF/SAHF supported in 64-bit mode = false
brand = "                  Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz"
(multi-processing synth): hyper-threaded (t=2)
(synth) = Intel Xeon (Prestonia D1), .13um

And so I had my answer: 64-bit extensions technology available = false