Bug#575760: Bug#575761: Bug#575760: x86 architecture names are confusing

[Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 at 02:46:58PM +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 21:27:55 +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.
> > 
> What's the status here?  Can we make the change in the website and the
> squeeze release notes now?  It seems everyone agrees the current names
> are confusing and Ben's suggestions would be an improvement.

Actions needed to fix this on we page is to edit following file (I am
not webwml expert)
CVS/debian/webwml/english/releases/squeeze/release.data.

It has:

%arches = (
        i386    => 'Intel x86',
        sparc   => 'SPARC',
#       alpha   => 'Alpha',
        powerpc => 'PowerPC',
        amd64   => 'AMD64',
#       arm     => 'ARM',
        armel   => 'EABI ARM',
        hppa    => 'HP PA-RISC',
        ia64    => 'Intel IA-64',
        mips    => 'MIPS (big endian)',
        mipsel  => 'MIPS (little endian)',
        s390    => 'IBM S/390',
);

This needs to be changed and reordered to:

# order are from http://popcon.debian.org/
# Thus vender neutral :-)
%arches = (
        i386    => '32-bit PC (i386)',
        amd64   => '64-bit PC (amd64)',
        armel   => 'EABI ARM (armel)',
        powerpc => 'PowerPC (powerpc)',
        sparc   => 'SPARC (sparc)',
#       arm     => 'ARM (arm)',
        ia64    => 'Intel IA-64 (ia64)',
        hppa    => 'HP PA-RISC (hppa)',
#       alpha   => 'Alpha (alpha)',
        mipsel  => 'MIPS (little endian) (mipsel)',
        s390    => 'IBM S/390 (s390)',
        mips    => 'MIPS (big endian) (mipsel)',
);

This order is the current popcon data order:
http://popcon.debian.org/
So we will not ask user to look through long list.

I hope this fixes non-optimal order and word issue on Debian web page
technically.  But we first agree on what wording are we using.

I like nonpedantic 32-bit PC/64-bit PC.

"EABI ARM" may be better to use "ARM (armel)" since we are not shipping
old arm any more.


Osamu 

Osamu