Re: i386 or amd64 debian for new intel 64 bit cpu?

On Monday 31 May 2010 06:08 in comp.os.linux.misc, somebody identifying
as Nasser M. Abbasi wrote...

On 05/30/2010 07:19 PM, Aragorn wrote:

Contrary to 32-bit however, there will be less "generic" stuff than
if you were to install i586 (i.e. Pentium I-level) packages on an
i686 system (e.g. Pentium 4).

The commonly used designations are AMD64 and x64-64 - some companies
such as Microsoft or Sun also use the term x64, but that's not an
official name for the platform - but you should *never* pick ISO
images or packages for IA64; that's the name for the Intel Itanium
platform.

Thanks for the info. When I type uname, I get this

2.6.26-2-686

It is a bit confusing, since it says "686" there, and at first I
thought I was running debian 64 bit, but it is not, since I downloaded
the i386 iso.

Well, the i386 designation is often used to denote that the packages are
compiled for x86-32, but that does not necessarily mean that they are
actually optimized for use on an 80386 processor. ;-)

Most 32-bit distributions for the x86-architecture these days are
optimized either for i586[1] or i686[2].

[1] Intel Pentium and Pentium MMX, and AMD K5, K6, K6-II, K6-III.

[2] Intel Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III and Pentium 4 and all
derived Xeons and Celerons, and AMD K7 (Thunderbird), Athlon, Athlon
XP and Athlon MP, and all derived Durons.

At first, I did not download the amd64 bit iso, thinking that was for
AMD only.

Nah, it's common to AMD and Intel. ;-)

I knew that ia64 was for different arch all together (itanium).

Yep.

But looking now at the FAQ, http://www.debian.org/CD/faq/ it says:

>>>
"By far the most popular one is the Intel/AMD architecture, so most
people will only want to get the images for "i386". If your PC has a
64-bit AMD or Intel processor, you will most likely need the "amd64"
images (though "i386" is also fine), the "ia64" images will not work."
>>>

Yep, that is correct. ;-)

I am just trying linux for now, so it is not too important I use 64
bit debian, but may be in the future I will try it, may be wait for
the next major debian release.

Well, it all depends on your personal needs and preferences. Personally
I would use AMD64, but my requirements are different from yours. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
.

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