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Re: What does i386 exactly mean?



On Monday 31 January 2005 06:21 am, andras.lorincz@gmail.com wrote:
> The debian packages contain in their names i386. That means, as far as 
> I know, that these programs are compiled to be able to run on at least 
> on intel 386 processors. But does it also mean that if are run on 
> newer machines, they run slower because don't exploit the capabilities 
> of the newer processors?    

Very rarely.  The packages that benefit from subarchitecture 
optimizations have packages for those subarchitectures built already 
(like the kernel, mplayer, etc).

> Is it worth to compile the packages before installing them, and if so 
> are there any configurations to be made to get a more optimized 
> binary?  

Only if you're a Gentoo ricer, in which your system will go 50 or 60 
times faster in your head alone.

-- 
Paul Johnson
baloo@ursine.ca
http://ursine.ca/~baloo/

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