Re: greater popularity of Debian on AMD64?
On Fri, 07 Sep 2012, Francesca Ciceri wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 07:17:52PM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > I've previously requested that various user-facing references to
> > 'i386' and 'amd64' should be changed to the hopefully more
> > understandable '32-bit PC' and '64-bit PC', with some success. Please
> > could the publicity team try to follow this convention in future
> > press/publicity material?
>
> Sure! I've just fixed the web version of DPN accordingly: changes will be
> visible in few hours.
If "64-bit PC" is too vague, the alternative designator for the amd64 arch
is the vendor neutral "x86-64". The vendor-neutral designator for all of
i386, i486, i586, i686, amd64 and x32 is "x86" (i.e. it is for both 32-bit
and 64-bit). i286, i186 and 8086 are too old to bother with :-)
AFAIK, "x86-32" is seldom used. "x64", which is the same as "x86-64", is
very rarely used (in fact, I've never seen anyone use it in Linux-centric
communities and workplaces).
AFAIK, the full x86 arch list, with vendor-neutral names is:
(non-vendor-neutral/explanation): vendor neutral
IA32,ix86,i386..i686: x86-32
amd64/EM64T, 64-bit ABI x86-64
32-bit ABI for amd64/EM64T: x32
any of those: x86
Notes:
1. x32 is very different from x86-32. x32 requires the x86-64 instruction
set and register set, and a x86-64 64-bit kernel with x32 support. There
is no non-vendor-neutral name for x32, fortunately :-)
2. A x86-64 processor can run code for any x86 arch/ABI.
3. A recent x86-64 linux kernel, properly configured, is supposed to support
all three arches/ABIs (x32, x86-32 and x86-64) concurrently.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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