System Architecture Question

Centinul · 07-20-2005, 11:55 AM

I'm going to be installing Gentoo on an older Celeron PC but I don't know how to tell what the system architecture is (i.e. i486, i686 etc)

It is a Celeron 500MHz.

Thanks!

traene · 07-20-2005, 12:39 PM

I think you can use the i686. For kernel configuration you may use:

Pentium-III/Celeron(Coppermine)/Pentium-III Xeon (MPENTIUMIII)

Select this for Intel chips based on the Pentium-III and
Celeron-Coppermine core. This option enables use of some
extended prefetch instructions in addition to the Pentium II
extensions.

or

Pentium-II/Celeron(pre-Coppermine) (MPENTIUMII)

Select this for Intel chips based on the Pentium-II and
pre-Coppermine Celeron core. This option enables an unaligned
copy optimization, compiles the kernel with optimization flags
tailored for the chip, and applies any applicable Pentium Pro
optimizations.

Centinul · 07-20-2005, 12:44 PM

How do I know if mine is Coppermine Core or not?

geeman2.0 · 07-20-2005, 12:51 PM

I believe "uname -a" will print the info you seek, among other things.

Centinul · 07-20-2005, 01:38 PM

That would be great if I had the distribution installed on the system, but I'm actually trying to determine which ISO's I need for Gentoo. I went to their site and they have a lot of choices. I'm not sure what system architecture a Celeron 500mHz will fall under.

Razze · 07-20-2005, 02:17 PM

If you have a live linux CD (for instance Knoppix) you can boot from that one and in a console type :

Code:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

The output of this command should tell you what you need to know

Example from a PIII:

Code:

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 8
model name      : Pentium III (Coppermine)
stepping        : 10
cpu MHz         : 997.237
cache size      : 256 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips        : 1970.17

As you can see it even tells you what optimization flags the processor supports.

Centinul · 07-20-2005, 04:15 PM

I guess I'll have to download Knoppix and use that command. Thanks for the help everyone!