Can someone please explain the difference between i386,i585,i686. I presume that it has something to do with the generation of the processor. I also dont understand why all my red hat RMPS are i386! what is the good of i686 then.

Also why would you download rpm source? wouldn't you have to compile is anyway! why have it in rpm format? why not .tar.gz?

thanks

i386,i586,i686 does refer to the generation of the processor. Most likely, if they are tagging something i586 or i686 it means they used compiler flags (march=i686 -mmmx -msse or the likes) that will cause the binary not to work on an earlier processor. If it is tagged i386 then it should work on any x86 processor that can run linux. So you might be missing out on a little bit of binary optimization if you are only using i386 tagged binaries.

As far as why you use src rpm's instead of .tar.gz files... I believe in Red Hat that will enter the dependency information into your rpm tree so that if you get a program that is dependent on the one you compiled from source it will know it's dependency is there.

thanks

With regard to the src rpm thing and dependencies:

Installing rpm files, or rebuilding from a src rpm file will add information into your rpm database. If you install from normal sources, this information isn't entered. It can be annoying. However, there is a way! Enter checkinstall. Basically, when compiling from source, instead of changing to root and giving make install, you would type (as root) checkinstall. This will create an rpm file (or deb or tgz) out of the sources you're compiling from, and install it thereby ensuring that the information is entered into the rpm database. You can also make it keep a copy of the rpm file it generates, so you can keep a copy around just in case

Hope this helps.