Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

CHAPTER 864-Bit, Multi-Core, andHyper-ThreadingTechnology ProcessorsIN THIS CHAPTER. 64-Bit Processors. Multi-Core Processors. Processors with Hyper-Threading TechnologyAs systems, both servers and desktops, require moreprocessing power, large file sizes, and access to more andmore memory, CPU manufacturers have been developingprocessors to address these needs. Red Hat Enterprise Linuxhas also evolved to support these technologies.64-Bit ProcessorsIn 2004, the 64-bit processor was introduced into thecomputer market. In the beginning, these 64-bit processorswere only used for servers, but ones such as the AMDAthlon 64 are now being used for desktop computers aswell.Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports both 32-bit and 64-bitprocessors. If you have a system with a 64-bit processor,install the 64-bit version of the operating system if youwant the 64-bit kernel, libraries, and available applicationsto be installed.Most of the modern 64-bit processors such as the AMD64and EM64T can also run 32-bit applications if the operatingsystem also supports it. 32-bit support is installed bydefault when installing the 64-bit version of Red HatEnterprise Linux.To run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, both sets oflibraries must be installed. Having both the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of a library installed at the same time is knownas multilib. Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows for this byfollowing the FHS guidelines. 32-bit libraries are installed in/lib/ and /usr/lib/, and 64-bit libraries are installed in/lib64/ and /usr/lib64/.