A Quick Question About Processors

Tear Syden · 04-20-2006, 07:14 PM

Alright, I've been using Linux for a little while now yet I seem to have gotten by without even knowing what kind of a processor I have. I need to know whether to get i386, x64_x86, or ppc.

I don't know what the differences are and would like a quick explanation please.

Thank you!

pljvaldez · 04-20-2006, 07:41 PM

i386 is basically any pentium like 32 bit processor (AMD k6, PI, PII, PIII, PIV, Celeron, etc), x64_x86 is generally newer 64 bit processors (AMD 64bit, Intel EM64T) and PPC is generally Macintosh (the chips I believe are made by motorolla).

ScottReed · 04-20-2006, 09:18 PM

Visit the manufacturers website for your computer and find the specs. The processor type and speed should be listed in the specs.

Then, when compiling a kernel browse the choices and find your processor.

Scott

ataraxia · 04-20-2006, 09:22 PM

Show us the output from these two commands:

Code:

uname -a
dmesg | grep CPU

Tear Syden · 04-20-2006, 10:12 PM

uname -a

Code:

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.10-1.771_FC2smp #1 SMP Mon Mar 28 01:10:51 EST 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

dmesg | grep CPU

Code:

Initializing CPU#0
CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=c03d1000 soft=c03b1000
CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps:  bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: Physical Processor ID: 0
CPU: After all inits, caps:        bfebf3ff 00000000 00000000 00000080
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU0: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available
CPU0: Thermal monitoring enabled
CPU0: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz stepping 09
per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 1462.82 usecs.
CPU 1 irqstacks, hard=c03d2000 soft=c03b2000
Initializing CPU#1
CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps:  bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: Physical Processor ID: 0
CPU: After all inits, caps:        bfebf3ff 00000000 00000000 00000080
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#1.
CPU1: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available
CPU1: Thermal monitoring enabled
CPU1: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz stepping 09
checking TSC synchronization across 2 CPUs: passed.
Brought up 2 CPUs
CPU0:
CPU1:
microcode: CPU1 updated from revision 0x21 to 0x2e, date = 08112004
microcode: CPU0 updated from revision 0x21 to 0x2e, date = 08112004

I am guessing this means my Pentium 4 would be i386 and those are the kinds of distros I have to download?

tamoneya · 04-20-2006, 10:38 PM

That determines the iso image that you should download for the distro. distros will provided files for multiple architectures. Your architecure is rather common so it should be available on almost all distros.

ataraxia · 04-21-2006, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tear Syden

I am guessing this means my Pentium 4 would be i386 and those are the kinds of distros I have to download?

Right you are. As these are the most common distros, you're in luck.

pljvaldez · 04-21-2006, 08:18 PM

After you install, you may want to upgrade to a SMP kernel. It looks like you either have multiple processors or a P4 with Hyperthreading. From a debian based distro, you can usually just apt-get a SMP kernel. Not sure about other distros. Or you can recompile your own...

J.W. · 04-21-2006, 10:45 PM

Here's what I recommend to get info about the CPU

Code:

cat /proc/cpuinfo