so basic

lacrimae · 02-06-2002, 11:14 PM

What is the difference between i386, i586...I don't know which applies to me, I am embarrassed to say.
If i download an iso, will it have, most likely, what I need in terms any drivers at all, the kernel source so I can recompile, etc? Or are they basic? This wasn't clear in my readings.

DavidPhillips · 02-06-2002, 11:21 PM

The iso's of most distros are the complete system at the time it was distributed

most of them have three iso's

one to install

the second is usually the sources

and the third is documentation.

The first one is enough to get going, and there will be lots of updates to download online.

acromi · 02-06-2002, 11:49 PM

i believe i386 is a 386 class processor...and i586 is a pentium class processor.

el_felipe · 02-07-2002, 03:40 AM

i386 stands for Intel processors from 386 on, i586 and i686 are more specific to Intel Pentium and they say they should be faster if used on a Pentium than i386 (they call it optimization).

I can remember Mandrake releasing his rpms optimized for i586 and RedHat for i386. Unless you have another erchitecture (say a Mac...) you can safely install either, or both! If you ran windoze then you got an Intel

el_felipe