On Jan 10, 2011, at 11:25 AM, Santi Saez wrote: > El 09/01/2011 16:31, Robert Heller escribió: > >> The kernel itself is optimized for the i686 processor. It is possible >> to custom build a kernel for the i586, i486, or i386 if you really have >> a processor that old. > > What is the sense of optimize a kernel for i686 and then distribute most > of packages for i386? > > For example in CentOS-5: > > kernel-2.6.18-194.el5.i686.rpm > php-5.1.6-27.el5.i386.rpm > httpd-2.2.3-43.el5.centos.i386.rpm > mysql-server-5.0.77-4.el5_4.2.i386.rpm > Most packages don't necessarily require the extra instructions in the 686. Routines like glibc, which are linked in at runtime, do get compiled for the 686.