Re: What does i386 exactly mean?

From: Greg Madden (gomadtroll_at_gci.net)
Date: 01/31/05

  • Next message: Bob Alexander: "Re: Increasing space under an existing directory" 
    To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:40:38 -0900

    On Monday 31 January 2005 06:17 am, Alvin Oga wrote:
    > On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Nicos Gollan wrote:
    > > On Monday January 31 2005 15:21, andras.lorincz@gmail.com wrote:
    > > > The debian packages contain in their names i386. That means, as
    > > > far as I know, that these programs are compiled to be able to run
    > > > on at least on intel 386 processors. But does it also mean that
    > > > if are run on newer machines, they run slower because don't
    > > > exploit the capabilities of the newer processors?
    >
    > ...
    >
    > > There are some rare cases where a customized build will offer an
    > > advantage, all of them CPU intensive programs like raytracers,
    > > graphics applications, A/V codecs and games. Usually simply
    > > building a package from the debian sources will apply the correct
    > > processor-specific extensions, but it doesn't hurt to look through
    > > the debian/rules file before a build.
    >
    > somebody should do a whitepaper on it and compare some standard
    > benchmarks with *.i386 vs compiled on the host machine with all the
    > whiz-bang instructions of that host cpu

    Uhmm.. that what Gentoo users do ;-)

    >
    > - fp based apps will probably benefit from recompiling for AMD cpus
    > ( that'd be mostof your graphics and compute intensive apps )
    >
    > - it's amazing that the itty-bitty instructions are still around
    > when all others of the same era died off eons ago
    >
    > - and if you wanna go superfast, and need that extra 10% - 20%
    > system performance improvement, you can always code in assy,
    > but you have to be smarter than "gcc" to do it right/better/faster
    >
    > c ya
    > alvin 

    -- 
Greg C. Madden
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