Dear all,

i am absolutely know nothing about linux, may be for u, this is a dumb question, but, however, i have to ask this.

recently, i always been to some linux download websites, and see some list of download file for certain linux distributions like "LINUX i386 binary rpm". then, my question is that what does "i386" means?

sometimes i saw "linux/ppc binary". then, what is "ppc" means then?

ok! if now, i am using rh8. then, i should choose.....??

Cheers,
yenonn

PPC means "Power PC", a different type of processor used by Macs and some other systems.

Most of your regular "PC"s are i386, meaning, Intel 386 based processors.

A Pentium 1, 2, 3, or 4 is an i386 processor.
AMD Athlon, Duron, et cetera, is also an i386 based processor.


You will probably want to get the i386 binary.

Under certain circumstances, you may see "i686" which will usually mean a newer processor, but still pretty much means i386. This usually refers to what it was compiled under... does that clarify it a bit for you?

yes.... thanks..!!! thanks a lot!!!!

Wow, lol, even i didn't know that one. Thanks for the new info

Just for my own knowledge, isn't there also an i586?

Not exactly true. When you see distros / versions that refer to i386.. i586 it refers to the what processor instruction set it has been optimized for. In the Intel world the processors are downward compatable therefore all i386 compiled code will work on everything from a i386 to a P4. But i586 code will not work on a 80386, 80486 or pentium PC.

FYI:
x86 processors
i386 80386 class
i486 80486 class
i586 pentium, pentium mmx
i686 pentium II, III, P4, AMD XP

For more info
http://www.rebourne.org/chiparch.htm

There can be no "nailing down" of that question to an answer that would fully qualify it. He wanted to know which one to get, so I answered it within the scope of the question.


There are times when it has been compiled for newer, faster optimizations, but if someone is looking at i386 vs PPC, the question is what type of architecture will the program run on. A very good example of this is for all of the BeOS users who went looking for programs, and found "Download for i386 or PPC". Those with Macintoshes running BeOS would snag the PPC, those with Intel 386 based systems, (and unless something is weird, all 686, 546, and 486 should be backward compatible) would get the i386 version.

One side of this question would be for the determination of optimization, over the difference in completely different architectures.

Coders will argue the differences, but end-users rarely see it.
But that, I believe, is for a different question.


Always good to have additional information, so thanks for the link!