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I'm downloading both versions of Ubuntu 12.04 at this moment. I'd like to install AMD64 on my portable, even though it's an Intel machine. Is there a website (or another way) where I can check compatibility?

Acer Aspire 5745G-724G50Mnks, Intel i7 with 4Gb RAM

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    For the record, it was AMD that originally spec'd out the 64 bit architecture so AMD got put their name on the istruction set. You can safely associate any PC 64-bit processor with any PC 64-bit OS. (Please note PC as an Intel compatible system which is different a POWER system or SPARC system). May 7, 2012 at 14:18
  • AMD didn't so much "put their name on the instruction set" (AMD's name for their 64-bit architecture is x86-64). "AMD64" is simply the name Debian (and Ubuntu followed) used for their x86-64 distribution, because during early development only AMD manufactured compatible 64-bit CPUs. Read more
    – Flimzy
    May 7, 2012 at 16:01
  • Good to note. I was under the impression that AMD64 was the branded name of x86-64 which set itself apart from Intel's EM64T that uses two 32-bit registers to act as 64-bit register where AMD uses true 64-bit registers. May 7, 2012 at 16:22
  • Yes. All Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPU's support 64-bit.
    – Bert
    Jun 18, 2014 at 20:29
  • N.B. For windows, you check under System information etc to find it: windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/…
    – Wilf
    Nov 4, 2014 at 17:05

4 Answers 4

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To find information about your CPU including architecture, execute lscpu in terminal.

Example:

lscpu

yields ...

Architecture:          i686
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                4
On-line CPU(s) list:   0-3
Thread(s) per core:    2
Core(s) per socket:    2
Socket(s):             1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 42
Stepping:              7
CPU MHz:               2301.000
BogoMIPS:              4589.37
Virtualization:        VT-x
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              256K
L3 cache:              3072K

For Intel systems, the Vendor ID is - GenuineIntel and for AMD - AuthenticAMD.

But they are compatible. It is a bit of an historical artifact in that AMD was the creator of the 64 bit 'long' mode, and later Intel matched that creation.
But naming often refers to any 64 bit binary as an AMD/64bit format, usually with the label 'AMD64'.

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Acer Aspire 5745G-724G50MNKS is 64 bit so you can run the amd64 download on it. I use the serial number (7545G) to google it and try to find items that included the architecture. Shops sell it with Windows 64 installed.

You will run into problems: looks like it is not 100% compatible with Ubuntu since I also found a bug report on this machine. It has amd64 stated as architecture so you can use amd64 on this.

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    OK, thanks. But for this question to be useful, you might post how you know this so others can check for themselves.
    – GUI Junkie
    May 7, 2012 at 10:42
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This is a more general but very practical answer to questions like this. We assume that we have no idea on what hardware we are, and we do not want to know anything about processors or achitecture of our system.

  • 32-bit processors are rare nowadays
  • Therefore download the am64 64-bit iso of Ubuntu and create a USB or CD boot medium
  • Boot with this and choose "Try out Ubuntu"

If that is a success and you are able to try out Ubuntu on your machine you then know for sure that your CPU is capable of running 64-bit Ubuntu. In addition you will also know that other hardware you may have is compatible. An installation will then be a success. If it fails go ahead with the 32-bit version.

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you could also get it from the proc.

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "vendor_id"

or LSCPU as someone else already mentioned. And if you want to have a script that detects the vendor, then you could do something like the following:

vendor=$(lscpu | awk '/Vendor ID/{print $3}')
if [[ "$vendor" == "GenuineIntel" ]]; then
   echo "Intel cpu"
elif [[ "$vendor" == "AuthenticAMD" ]]; then
   echo "AMD cpu"
else
    echo "cpu vendor: $vendor"
fi

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