How to find the processor type in AIX OS

To determine the processor type for the English version of AIX, at the shell command prompt, type:

prtconf | grep -i "Processor Type"

To validate AIX is the English version, at the shell command prompt, type:

     echo $LANG

This will be set to "C" for the English version.

Depending upon the processor type and installation, the above command may give the following types of output:

On a Power 4 type of processor:

$ prtconf | grep -i "Processor Type"
Processor Type: PowerPC_POWER4

On a non Power 4 type RISC based processor:

$ prtconf | grep -i "Processor Type"
Processor Type:  PowerPC_RS64-II

On AIX systems prtconf utility can be found in /usr/sbin and the grep utility can be found in /usr/bin directories.