diff --git a/Lib/distutils/util.py b/Lib/distutils/util.py
index 36c4a68..416deec 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/util.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/util.py
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@
 import imp
 import sys
 import string
-import platform
 from distutils.errors import DistutilsPlatformError
 from distutils.dep_util import newer
 from distutils.spawn import spawn
@@ -78,7 +77,11 @@
         if release[0] >= "5":           # SunOS 5 == Solaris 2
             osname = "solaris"
             release = "%d.%s" % (int(release[0]) - 3, release[2:])
-            machine += ".%s" % platform.architecture()[0]
+            # We can't use "platform.architecture()[0]" because a
+            # bootstrap problem. We use a dict to get an error
+            # if some suspicious happens.
+            bitness = {2147483647:"32bit", 9223372036854775807:"64bit"}
+            machine += ".%s" % bitness[sys.maxint]
         # fall through to standard osname-release-machine representation
     elif osname[:4] == "irix":              # could be "irix64"!
         return "%s-%s" % (osname, release)