64-bit: How Do I Know Whether a System Can Run the 64-bit Solaris Operating Environment?

Currently, the only platform capable of supporting the 64-bit Solaris operating environment is an UltraSPARC system. You can verify whether a system is an UltraSPARC system by using the following command:

$ uname -m
sun4u

If the output of the uname -m command is sun4u, then the machine is an UltraSPARC system.

If you are running the Solaris 7 release, you can verify this by using the psrinfo command:

# psrinfo -v 		
Status of processor 0 as of: 02/10/98 14:25:55 		  
  Processor has been on-line since 01/30/98 15:10:29. 
	  The sparcv9 processor operates at 168 MHz,
        and has a sparcv9 floating point processor. 		
Status of processor 1 as of: 02/10/98 14:25:55 		  
  Processor has been on-line since 01/30/98 15:10:33. 
	  The sparcv9 processor operates at 168 MHz,
	        and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.  	

If the processor type is sparcv9, the platform is capable of running the 64-bit Solaris operating environment. This test does not work on previous versions of the psrinfo command, where all platforms report the less precise sparc as the processor type.