I have always downloaded i386 for my computer which is a centrino, I am just wondering if that is the correct one to download for centrino and if you could also explain the differences between all of them, i386-i686-i586 etc. Their always mentioned for some reason.

x86 is a description of (generally) most desktop processors since and including the 386. This includes all 386s, 486s, Pentiums, Pentium Pros, Pentium IIs, Pentium IIIs, Cyrix processors, Via C3s, AMD K6, AMD K7, AMD Duron, and 32 bit versions of the Intel P4, Intel Xeon, and AMD Athlon. There are some others, but this should give you the general idea.

586 is the processor family that began with the Pentium, and included the Pentium/MMX.

686 began with the pentium pro and describes the basic instruction set used up until today. The trend has become to add extensions to the instruction set (mmx, sse, sse2, etc.) while leaving the old instructions compatible.

Based on your statement about centrino, you clearly have quite a current computer. i686 packages would be the package of choice. Generally speaking, they perform slightly better than 586 or 386. (For floating point or cpu-intensive work, this may be more than just slightly).

For more details, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icroprocessors

I don't see any i686 for fc4, is There one?

Honestly, I have no idea, since I don't use FC. However, I'd guess that they only provide a 386 install image (too much trouble to make install images for every subarch) but that there are also i686 rpms that can be installed afterwards.

These are different processors 386, 486 are Intel processors. Quite old now but not unknown.

586 is probably better known as Pentium, and the 686 is Pentium II and above.

K6 is for AMD K6 processors. Then there is K7 is for AMD Athlons.

Centrino would be 686.

Most packages are for i386, since most software doesn;t actually use any of the advanced features available in the newer chips. But for stuff that does ( i.e. the Kernel, some multimedia stuff etc. ) then the most compatible is best.

What kind of i686 rpms are you talking about?

From the various FC4 repositories.

would it work just fine for me to download a 386 image of fc4 and then for the programs that I use that need the advanced features of my chip I could download the 686 version of the program. Would that work or would I still need the 686 of the OS to run most efficiently?

That would work, but I strongly suggest installing a 686 kernel image as well.

Well how could I get one for fc4?

They should all be included in the i386 tree, just with names ending by .i686.rpm, IIRC.