Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX

i386, i586, i686. . .

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DJ:
sorry to ask such a newb question but what is the difference?

I see on some ftp sites . . .

i386/iso/*filename*
i586/iso/*filename*
/iso/*filename

What are the differences between them? Is it the computer stucture or simply a way to classify certain types of systems (by age maybe)

Dj

EDIT: the reason I ask is because I just installed Lycoris on my secondary over Mandrake and it worked fine with my monitor/vid card issues, but I would like to try ximian and it is not available for the Lycoris platform

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Engineer ]

Ice-9:
It refers to your cpu architecture.
I think i386 points to 386 and 486 cpu's, i586 to Pentium cpu's and i686 for PII and above.
I could be wrong about the last though, it might refer to PIII and above.

You should stick with the appropriate cpu architecture since it's quite important to determine which instructions your cpu can handle.
In any ways it's for optimization so on an x86 platform your alays safe by chosing i386.

choasforages:
and for that information
k6 class machines can only run i586 code, not i686
/*don't ask me it just is*/

pkd_lives:
It's just as Ice9 says. all for marketing reasons - research shows numbers scare people, but names make them feel safe, and incrementing the name with a version number convinces them that the product is getting better - so much for free thought.

i386 = 386
i486 = 486
i586 = Pentium 1
i686 = Pentium 2
i787 = Pentium 3
i886 = Pentium 4.

So as you can see, Linux is equivalent of XP and most distros still only run at Pentium2 architecture. However even in the windows world the only software I know that utilixes P4 is XP.

You cannot really use i586 software on i386. There may be functionality (processor commands for example) used that do not exist in the earlier version. In fact the commands are the real reason for upping a processor, speed is really a side benefit and a secondary concern for anyone really using their computer.

Choasforages - The K6 processor utilized the i586 command structure. Although it reached nice PII speeds it could not use the extra 30 or so instructions implimented in the PII.

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Linux Frank ]

choasforages:
errr, i though that the pentium 4 was i686 based with a few instructions. and i could push pentium4 optimized code out for linux if i really wanted to and owned a pentium4. i already compile all my code for k6-3. or i could get icc for free/*yes its on there website, but im not using intel proc on this box, only compatible*/

and for pentium III and Pentium IV
all they did was slow the latter down and add  YAIS  (yet another instruction set) they didn't change the  achitecutre like they did from traditional x86 to p6 /*somebody with more insight  then either of us correct this*/

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