Also, the package on debian.org has the suspicious name: linux-image-2.6.12-1-k7_2.6.12-6-i386.deb is it i386 or k7? Is this normal?
This is normal, the package is for the i386 architecture (e.g. not for PowerPC or Sparc), but the kernel is optimized for the K7 processor. (More than just optimized, I'm quite sure it won't run on non-K7 processors.) The K7 processors are still i386 architecture though.
I hope this made it a bit clearer, Hugo van der Merwe