Bug#575760: x86 architecture names are confusing
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.
Whatever you do, please avoid any vendor-specific names (including
'IA32' which is almost unknown outside of Intel manuals).
At least the following pages use these names:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/
http://www.debian.org/ports/
http://www.debian.org/mirror/submit
http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/adding-form
Most other pages using these names appear to be part of the
installation manual or release notes, which can be dealt with
separately.
Ben.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers proposed-updates
APT policy: (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-3-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Reply to: