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Bug#575760: x86 architecture names are confusing



On Mon, 2010-03-29 at 21:27 +0200, Simon Paillard wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> [CC the other Bug# against release-notes]
> 
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 02:52:55AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > Package: www.debian.org
> > Severity: normal
> > 
> > Various pages use the long architecture names 'AMD64' and 'Intel x86'
> > for our architectures 'amd64' and 'i386'.  The name 'AMD64' sometimes
> > confuses users with Intel x86-64 chips, who instead download the
> > installer or CD images for ia64.  This is a waste of time and
> > bandwidth for all concerned.  The name 'Intel x86' is also inaccurate
> > in that the i386 architecture runs on 32-bit x86 processors from many
> > vendors.
> > 
> > I recommend the names '32-bit PC' and '64-bit PC' - they are not
> > pedantically correct, but people should understand what they mean.
> 
> Or: 32-bit PC (i386) | 64-bit PC (amd64)
> (in order to keep in mind the official name in the archive).
> 
> I fully agree. We received many reports/doubts of users on debian-www.
> 
> For the record, the subject has been discussed in November:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-www/2009/11/threads.html#00005
> FJP position: http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2009/11/msg00515.html
> 
> The point of FJP is however to keep consistency between displayed names
> and architecture name.

His major point seems to be that the current layout sucks, which I fully
agree with.  I would suggest using lists or tables with one line per
architecture, sorted in reverse order of popularity (according to
popcon).

> It may be relevant to change amd64 to something else, but may need
> much larger changes in Debian..
[...]

The official short names really cannot be changed.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.

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