1 gb with Redhat
 

I've got two question.
1) I've got 1 gb of ram. Which kernel i must use with Redhat 9. The normal kernel or the big-mem one. If i use the normal one, does it use my 1 gb ram or just going to use half of it.

2) While updating redhat from errata, which rpm's i'm going to download.
i686 ones or i386 ones..and i don't want to compile my kernel.
what's the difference between i386 and i686. ?

thanx

1) You want the bigmem if you have 1-4GB of RAM, but the normal one will still work fine.
2) If you have a Pentium-1 or above (or equivalent), then i686 will be slightly better.
However, you do want to compile your kernel. If you want to update it, then doing it yourself is the only sensible way.