i386, 586, 686? The difference?

wildbill · 01-24-2003, 08:49 AM

Hi all,

I'm new to Redhat and Linux altogether and am running RH8. I have what seems to be i586 running on my machine but the CDs I have seem to be i386. (got the CDs from one place and the install on my own machine from another...)

What's the difference between these if any, and can I use my 386 CDs with my 586 installation?

Thanks in advance...

mcleodnine · 01-24-2003, 08:57 AM

In this case i386 is just referring to the generic arcitechture of the target platform. You want the i386 for anything from a '386 right up to P4, including Athlon, Smeleron and varieties.If you're running PPC, ia64, sparc, or other arch's then you're in for an interesting venture.

bulliver · 01-24-2003, 02:15 PM

Just for clarity: You can use packages etc that are equal or lower than your arch ie: i586 and i386, however you could not use i686 packages, as they have been optomized for a faster/newer processor.

the_incubus · 03-21-2003, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mcleodnine
In this case i386 is just referring to the generic arcitechture of the target platform. You want the i386 for anything from a '386 right up to P4, including Athlon, Smeleron and varieties.If you're running PPC, ia64, sparc, or other arch's then you're in for an interesting venture.

I'm planning on installing Mandrake 9, which I got from a .iso file on the internet. The full file name is: Mandrake90-cd1-inst.i586.iso. I got from the above post that i586 refers to the architecture. Will it work on a computer with a pentium 233 processor?

Danke schön

The (and this nick is not an attempt to be 1337. Honest!) Incubus

bulliver · 03-21-2003, 04:40 PM

Yes, i586 will work on the pentium....

ranger_nemo · 03-21-2003, 05:30 PM

386 and 486 are self-explanatory.

586 is the original Pentium and Pentium MMX.

686 is the Pentium Pro and anything built on it... PII, P!!!, Celeron, P4.

As Bulliver said, you can use lower packages on a higher chip. Higher chips have all the instructions of the lower chips, plus more... MMX, SSE, SSE2, and what-not. So, packages built on a higher chip might have instructions in it from the newer set, and might not run if you try them on a lower chip.

the_incubus · 03-21-2003, 06:47 PM

Since I'm a complete linux newbie, I have a feeling I'll be coming here often

Thanks again

The (But when I killed this really old process called "Init", my machine crashed. Stupid OS!)

bulliver · 03-21-2003, 06:59 PM

init is always pid number 1. You'll want to keep that one running

Also, just to add for those who like the AMD, the old K6 is a 586, and the newer durons and athlons are 686's

bqh · 03-27-2003, 04:31 PM

Hi,
I have always used arc i386 on three of my linux servers. The fourth one is an Athlon. Again, I installed 386 on it. But it seems to crash often, while the others don't. The other servers experience little load, but the Athlon is the main server.

I also upgraded it to kernel 2.4.18-19.8.0, and it crashes even when I compile (amanda) using a normal account. Syslog spits out "Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ..."

Does anyone know if I can use 386 on Athlon? and if so, has anyone experienced it??

thank you all.