Often I find that I am needing to determine a) if an O/S install is 32bit or 64bit and b) if the CPU will support 64bit. I run into a lot of Linux boxes that have 64bit CPUs but the 32bit version of the distribution was installed. Here are a few quick ways to tell. For the O/S: The architecture should be listed as x86_64 for 64bit or i686 for 32bit. Using uname (-m or -p): 64bit $ uname -m x86_64 $ uname -p x86_64 32bit $ uname -m i686 $ uname -p i686 or using lscpu: 64bit $ lscpu | grep -i arch Architecture: x86_64 32bit $ lscpu | grep -i arch Architecture: i686 or using getconf: 64bit $ getconf...

Well, in the name of security, it seems Java 7 has broken a whole lot of apps. I will not bother with the pros and cons of this, but will simply address how to get things working again. Java 7, by default, blocks “untrusted” and “self-signed” applications. In addition, it is 64 bit and will not work with Chrome on Macs, which is 32 bit. Trying to run such an app results in this annoying dialog: There are a couple ways around this. The most simple is to use the Java Security Preferences to lower the Security Level. This can be done by: Select “System...

With RPMForge you have access to over 5,000 additional packages, including  wine, vlc, mplayer, xmms-mp3, and other popular media tools. It is not part of CentOS but is designed to work with it. Installing RPMForge: Download the Package Install the GPG Key Verify the Package Install the Package Enjoy I generally prefer to work out of an “install” folder, it makes it easier for me to cleanup my mess and/or retain stuff that I install for later use elsewhere. $ mkdir install $ cd install/ $ wget http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.3-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm $ sudo rpm...