Installed 64 BIT OS (Ubuntu) on 32 Bit System?!

[Inject]

As I recalled my old system was a 32Bit system. It's a rather old pc (Intel Pentium 4 3GHZ), and I acdiently installed Ubuntu 64 Bit. Am I incorrect and is my system actually 64 Bit compatable? Or I am harming the computer by having the wrong OS System on it.

 

I'm was previously under the impression that it was impossible to install a 64 BIT OS on a incompatable System. So I'm quite confused at the moment.

 

Ideas?

 

Thanks.

[Derranged]

32-Bit = 3.25 GB's of RAM maximum possible.

64-Bit = 64GB's + Maximum RAM (Depends on the OS, Windows Home is limited compared to Professional).

 

I actually haven't researched anything on it other than what I had just said, but it shouldn't do anything to your system.

[AMICLG]

That processor has x64 support from what I remember and it won't harm the hardware.

[cyberlocc]

It will work

[Inject]

@Cyberlocc
How would I check the specs on my Processor? Any idea on Ubuntu?

 

I'll try downloading software for it if it doesn't have anything by default.

[cyberlocc]

is it a pc you built yourself and or a prebuilt and i think theres a verison of cpuz for linux

 

Here http://www.webupd8.org/2009/10/cpu-z-for-ubuntu-cpu-g.html

[Inject]

It had windows XP on it, I formated it and put ubuntu on due to some issuesing I was having. I didn't have any extra copys or the old key for XP so reinstalling XP wasn't an option.

 

I installed 12.10 Ubuntu.

 

It's a custom build from a long time ago, but I wasn't the one who personally built it. It's not my main pc. It's just the Home PC. I don't personally use it.

[cyberlocc]

use that program cpu g and see what it says.

 

Although either way i would suggest re installing 32 bit

[t0wer]

Intel had 64 bit support starting with prescott celeron D/pentium 4 which released in 2004.

[Derranged]

it wont damage anything to my knowledge while derranged is rigth that is not what 64 bit means and those restrictions are only in windows 32 bit passes 32 bits of data at a time while 64 bit passes 64 thus you need a dual core or quad core proccesor to utilize the 64 bits. Will it hurt your system hardware no, Will it run correctly no, You should reinstall the 32 bit verision. What i beleive adam is reffering to is there was a model of p4 w hyper threading thus 1 physical core and 1 virtual core and it could in theory run 64bit but it wasnt that stable so no one did. hope this helps.

And btw if you check your system specs you have a p4HT pentuim 4 with hyper threading and tehn check the number after ypur prc such as pentuim 4 630 if the first number is a 5 or 6 its a 64bit able but again just because you can i would not suggest running 64 bit on that pc

Also deranged the ram limit of 64bit is 1tb not 64gbs

As I said "64GB+"... I remember reading about Win 7 Home Premium only supporting up to 64GB... And other versions more, however I could be incorrect.

Anyway, just re-install it.

-RANT: I am currently running a Linux machine too (64-Bit)... Just ordered a 120GB SSD for it too (Currently running it off an external laptop HDD). I am currently seeing some instability issues with it though, I suspect it might be because I am running it on an external drive (When I install the AMD graphics driver it doesn't boot into the OS). I seem to be the only one getting this issue. Other than that, it's a wonderful operating system; if it fully supported every game I wouldn't see any reason to use Windows. -EndRant

[Billbob]

If you managed to install an ubuntu 64bit and it runs then your system will be fine with it, be aware that when installing drivers outside of the package manager to use 64bit ones (called x86_64 or x64 or AMD64).

[Glenwing]

it wont damage anything to my knowledge while derranged is rigth that is not what 64 bit means and those restrictions are only in windows 32 bit passes 32 bits of data at a time while 64 bit passes 64 thus you need a dual core or quad core proccesor to utilize the 64 bits. Will it hurt your system hardware no, Will it run correctly no, You should reinstall the 32 bit verision. What i beleive adam is reffering to is there was a model of p4 w hyper threading thus 1 physical core and 1 virtual core and it could in theory run 64bit but it wasnt that stable so no one did. hope this helps.

And btw if you check your system specs you have a p4HT pentuim 4 with hyper threading and tehn check the number after ypur prc such as pentuim 4 630 if the first number is a 5 or 6 its a 64bit able but again just because you can i would not suggest running 64 bit on that pc

Also deranged the ram limit of 64bit is 1tb not 64gbs

 

Well it seems there is some confusion about RAM limitations... so far no one has been right.  The maximum RAM limit just depends on how many addresses can be represented in the system.

 

32-bit system = 2³² = 4,294,967,296 possible addresses, so ~4.3 billion (or 4.3 giga in metrics) is the highest number that can be represented in a 32-bit system, which is why any amount of RAM higher than 4.3GB is ignored in a 32-bit system, the system can't count that high.

 

64-bit system = 2⁶⁴ = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible addresses, about 18.5 quintillion (or 18.5 exa in metrics).  The max limit for RAM in a 64-bit system is 18.5 exabytes.

 

That being said Windows imposes a limit of 192GB (except Home Premium which is limited to 16GB).

 

And there is no relation between the width of the instruction sets and how many cores or threads the CPU has.

 

And finally in response to the OP, Pentium 4 did have 64-bit support.  From Wikipedia: "In 2004, the initial 32-bit x86 instruction set of the Pentium 4 microprocessors was extended by the 64-bit x86-64 set."

[lutzee]

Sigh.. First off, you cannot install a 64Bit OS on a PC that has a 32Bit architecture currently running

 

Second if its staying as a linux machine you'll be installing programs from packages and will install the relevant architecture version from the repos if they are available

 

As for drivers make sure you install the correct drivers then have him not touch them 

[Inject]

Sigh.. First off, you cannot install a 64Bit OS on a PC that has a 32Bit architecture currently running

Well, that's sort of the first thing I asked.

 

So under what you said my CPU does use a 64Bit architecture.

 

 

 

And as a side note to cyberlocc, the person using this computer does not know how to install anything anyways. They will be using it almost entirly only for surfing the web and occasionally making a Word* Docutument and printing or emailing it out.

[joshuamurphy]

@Cyberlocc

How would I check the specs on my Processor? Any idea on Ubuntu?

 

I'll try downloading software for it if it doesn't have anything by default.

look up hardinfo you can download it by opening terminal (hit win key then type terminal or press ctr alt t ) then type sudo apt-get install hardinfo

also 12.04 onwards has system moniter in them already i think. win key then type system moniter.

also downloading software ctr alt t then type sudo apt-get install (name of software) or just use the super slow software centre.

[lutzee]

You can also search the apt database using apt-cache search <regex string> 

[GoodBytes]

You probably have a Pentium 4 with 64-bit support. If I recall correctly, it was really not great. Actually it was quiet poor, and only supported a very few 64-bit instructions, and performance was lower than 32-bit. Intel made a patch out of it's Pentium 4 to support 64-bit. It didn't really support it.

It's AMD that made the real deal, with native and full 64-bit support, which now Intel licenses AMD patent for it's CPU since the Core 2 Duo series.

 

I would re-install your OS with a 32-bit version Ubuntu.

[colonel_mortis]

It'll work fine, but it's not optimal because it'll use more RAM and hard disk space. I don't think it's work the bother of reinstalling it personally, but that's your decision. (unless you have 1GB of RAM or less, in which case you should downgrade to give you back some of it)/

[Flojer0]

32-bit system = 2³² = 4,294,967,296 possible addresses, so ~4.3 billion (or 4.3 giga in metrics) is the highest number that can be represented in a 32-bit system, which is why any amount of RAM higher than 4.3GB is ignored in a 32-bit system, the system can't count that high.

64-bit system = 2⁶⁴ = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible addresses, about 18.5 quintillion (or 18.5 exa in metrics). The max limit for RAM in a 64-bit system is 18.5 exabytes.

That being said Windows imposes a limit of 192GB (except Home Premium which is limited to 16GB).

And there is no relation between the width of the instruction sets and how many cores or threads the CPU has.

Still a little bit off.

Your math is right but data amounts aren't really metric. In reality one KiloByte is 1024 (2^10) bytes, one MegaByte 1024 KiloBytes etc. So the 32 bit memory limit would indeed be exactly 4GB, and the 64 bit limit 16 ExaBytes. What are being pro

(Just found before I hit post. Apparently I was mistaken and you are right and I should be using KibiBytes and MebiBytes and such. But I'm going to leave it as is unless someone complains :) )

Also to my knowledge I haven't actually seen a 32 bit computer that can address a whole 4GB. I don't know the reason for this personally.

In addition no individual machine is even close to capable of the full limit of a 64 bit memory bus so you are limited by whatever you can fit on the motherboard or the operating system. In the case of windows 8 the current limits are 128GB for home edition and 512GB for professional, Windows 7 home is 16 GB while Professional and up is 192GB.

Sorry that this has little to do with the original qhestion, but the "Kilo/Kibi" byte confusion causes some weird numbers sometimes. I like to keep them nice and round if I can.