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they refer to general processor categories/speeds
i386 is Pentium 1 class
i586 is sort of Pentium 2 upwards
and i686 is P4 and equivelant
it means the OS has been compiled to run on at least a processor in that class
so an i386 hasn't been compiled to makes use of the newer on chip instruction sets
I have redhat 9 which is i386 on an i686 and mandrake which is i586 on the same i686
most distros are i386, apart from mandrake and suse which are i586
generally, it's ok to use i386 stuff on faster machines
but you'd have problems running i686 on a i386 class machine
this is a general overview and slightly vague at that
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