Re: determining architecture
Thus spake Clive Menzies (clive@clivemenzies.co.uk):
> On (27/04/03 18:58), Kete Foy wrote:
> > From: "Kete Foy" <k3nn3thf0yjr@cox.net>
> > To: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
> > Subject: Re: determining architecture
> > Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 18:58:39 -0400
> >
> > out of these,
> > a.. Installation Manual for Alpha
> > b.. Installation Manual for ARM
> > c.. Installation Manual for HP PA-RISC
> > d.. Installation Manual for Intel x86
> > e.. Installation Manual for Intel IA-64
> > f.. Installation Manual for Motorola 680x0
> > g.. Installation Manual for MIPS
> > h.. Installation Manual for MIPS (DEC)
> > i.. Installation Manual for PowerPC
> > j.. Installation Manual for IBM S/390
> > k.. Installation Manual for SPARC ,
> > i have an Intel, but it's a Celeron processor.
>
> Hi Kete
>
> Intel x86 is what your machine is - Celeron is an Intel clone.
Er, no the Celerons are all made by Intel.
The reason for the designation x86 is that the Intel CPU chips
initially ran in the following sequence:
8086 (16-bit), 80286 (16-bit), 80386 (32-bit), 80486 (32)
(I'm omitting the 8088, the 386SX and the 486SX which are not relevant
to this discussion).
However, in the late 80s/early 90s CPU clone manufacturers started
producing 386 compatible and calling them 386s: e.g. the AMD 386.
Intel sued for coyright infringement, but lost in court, the verdict
being that you cannot copyright a number (you can, apparently,
copyright an English phrase like "X inside" - as witness Intel's suing
a San Francisco copmany calling themselves "Yoga Inside"; I imaging
the oppotrunties for confusion were legion...)
So Intel did not call the next chip the 80586, as anticipated, but
held an internal competition for a new name - and apparently "Pentium"
was the best (makes one shudder to think what the rest were like,
Pentium always sounded more like a toothpaste to me).
However, the Pentium Pentium-pro, P-II, Celeron (originally a
go-slower version of the P-II, now I think it's a go-slowwer P-III or
P-IV) all use *roughtly* the same instruction set. Put another way,
any program which runs on a 386 will, in principle, run unmodified
(the binary executable) on anything up to and including the latest
P-IV.
Clones like the Cyrix 686 (who remembers these) and the curent slew of
AMDs (I'm currently typing on an Athlon) also use the same instruction
set - and must be 100% compatible or programs will not run and you
won't sell any.
Because of the initial pattern of naming the chips, this instruction
set was often referred to as i386 or Intel x86 for, I trust, obvioyus
reasons.
Recently, however, with the introduction of the totally-incompatible
Itanium, a 64-bit CPU, Intel seem to have revised history yet
again. They are now referring to the new machines as IA-64 and x86 (or
rather, the 386-onwards) have become IA-32.
IA standing for Intel Architecture.
Depending
> on how new/old your machine is, you could start with the basic install for i386 architecture
> and once you've installed the base system, upgrade your kernel to a
> later one say - 2.4.18 for i686 (which I believe is PIII or above)
True. Although the basic instruction set is the same, there are
differences of detail which make it worthwhile compiling for the
proper chip.
--
|Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood|
|Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to. |
|email: dbarker@camosun.bc.ca | |
|phone: +1 250 370 4452 | Hermann Scherchen. |
Reply to: