Re: Hardware Question

On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 05:24 -0600, Donald D Henson wrote:
For any of you hardware experts out there...

1. Does i686 always mean that the referenced processor/machine/platform
is 64-bit?

2. Does i386 always mean 32-bit?

3. If the 'uname' command reports that the machine/processor is i686 and
that the platform is i386, does this mean that I am restricted to 32-bit
software?

I think I know the answers to these questions but I'm not sure, and I
haven't been able to find an answer for such basic questions. Thanks for
any assistance.

--
Donald D. Henson, Managing Director
West El Paso Information Network
The "Non-Initiation of Force Principle" Rules



Hi Donald,

in the absence of more accurate knowledge heres my take:

i386, 486, 568 and 686 refer the architecture of the processor and the
way it works. Software compiled for x86 (which means any of 386, 486
etc) will not work on other processor architecture such as PowerPC
(MAC), SPARC or Cell

i386 is the standard base x86 CPU that modern software is compiled for
so in theory it should work on any processor from i386 upwards. The 486
had more features and were around 66Mhz, 100Mhz and 133Mhz. The Pentium
then gave us the i586 as it had more features again. Finally IIRC the
Athlon K7 and Intel Pentium3 were the first processors to be deemed i686
so if software wants to take advantage of the extra features these CPUs
provide they compile for i686.

64-bit is still x86 compatible but software can be written to take
advantage of the extra performance it provides. so 64-bit is 386 and 686
(generally called x86-64) but the modern 64-bit CPU's are all 686's

Hope this isnt too far off.


--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The IMMEDIATE mess
    ... makes sense in compile state, then you can make it with IMMEDIATE. ... In 35 years I've yet to have a problem with IMMEDIATE. ... So I want to find a way to add the features I want instead of get rid ... If you give Forth programmers power, ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: eclipse 3.0 - dose it support jdk1.5.0?
    ... >>Thje main concern of mine is that eclipse will compile and run all new ... Eclipse really should have allowed an easy entering of an external ... The jGRASP 1.7.1 release added more support for Java 1.5 features. ... generation now fully supports Java 1.5 syntax. ...
    (comp.lang.java.help)
  • Re: Which programming language is better to start
    ... >>> It may happen that some features in LISP render slower implementations ... >> work is done at compile time. ... >> In that kind of situations, static typing gets in the programmer's way ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: export
    ... > That's not too surprising, ... The benefit would be only to vendors who hadn't implemented it, ... A slope to adding new features? ... compile current boost without workarounds ...
    (comp.lang.cpp)
  • Re: How do... YOU... do... "IT"?
    ... So you add those extra features, and you can sell SSJOW v 2.0. ... the file format incompatible with v2. ... bug fixes, and might even start looking at alternatives. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)