What is i586

I want to try out a different distro but it appears to only be available in i586. I thought 586 was for the Mac. Is i586 appropriate for Intel (PCs) based computers?

Thanks,

royeo

yes it is. I believe it is a higher level architecture than i486 but lower than 686. The 'i' in "i586" stands for Intel. And I believe the Mac(IBM-based ones anyway) are called PPC.

Yes i586 should work on any fairly modern intel type (AMD included, or other clones of the intel archetecture) processor. Macs older than a few months old (the brand new macs run intels) run IBM PPC (which stands for power PC) architecture. So if you run a intel based machine (like the ones that are generaly shipped with windows, i596 should work just fine on your machine.

i586 is a type of family architecture for processors. like i386 would be for the 386 processors. I believe that pentium 4 is either i586 or in the i686 family. It is just a cpu class. Mac has the architecture of PPC

i586 is about the 5th generation of the intel 86 architecture

It goes something like this,

8086 and 8088, 1st gen
80286, 2nd gen
80386, 3rd gen (this is the minimum for linux)
80486, 4th gen
80586, 5th gen (intel pentium and amd k5)
80686, 6th gen (intel pentium pro, II and amd k6)

after that it starts getting a bit strange, if they kept the same system i belive it would be something like this.

80786, 7th gen (intel pentium III and 4. amd athlon(plain and XP), duron and sempron)
80886, 8th gen (later gen intel pentium 4. and amd opteron and athlon64)

But really after 80686's intel and amd followed there own generation schemes.

There is also older makes like winchip and cyrix, and newer ones like viaC3's (which i think originated from the cyrix stable) to throw into the mix.

In general anything that is compiled for a 386 will run on anything above it. However for an example something compiled on a 486 will not run right on a 386.

When you talk about mac's they used a chip that originated from motorola named the PPC, which from what i understand is now made by ibm and i think is also the same chip that powers some sparc (please correct me if i'm wrong). But the latest generation of mac's come with an intel chip (the core solo or duo) which is based if not the same as the pc chip.

That all sounds right except the sparc theory. I believe (won't swear to it) sparc stands for scalable processor arcetecture. It was devoloped by sun and is what you find in most sun machines, although some workstations have amd athalons. anyway my point is PPC and sparc are different. It is also notable to say that sparc is "open source hardware", the design for sparc is free and available.

Originally Posted by rmakers That all sounds right except the sparc theory. I believe (won't swear to it) sparc stands for scalable processor arcetecture. It was devoloped by sun and is what you find in most sun machines, although some workstations have amd athalons. anyway my point is PPC and sparc are different. It is also notable to say that sparc is "open source hardware", the design for sparc is free and available.

correct. sparc was used by Sun. I believe it is used still but Seems like Sun is doing a lot more promoting their servers with AMD opterons.