At 10:31 PM 7/16/2011, you wrote: >On 07/16/11 7:50 PM, david wrote: > > If the I386 (or i686, never could figure out why the name change) > >I386 was the original 386 CPU, which ran at speeds from 16 to 33Mhz >i486 includes a few additional instructions on the 486 processor, and >IIRC, ran at speeds from 25 to 100Mhz >i586 is the original pentium, at 60, 66, 90, 100 up to about 133Mhz >i686 is the pentium pro and pentium-II, -III, -IV and everything newer. > >i686 added a few minor new instructions but also has additional memory >management functionality missing from the earlier versions. > >its just gotten silly to try and keep backwards support for the early >versions of the CPUs that have been obsolete for so long. > >really, we should have compiler targets for optimizing on the P4 >'netburst' CPUs and another for the core processors as they are all >pipelined differently. as it turns out, however, the core 2 and core >I3/5/7 do pretty well with pentium-II and -III style optimization >strategies, as well as, of course, the x86_64 support. > > >-- >john r pierce N 37, W 122 >santa cruz ca mid-left coast Folks My initial post was perhaps mis-stated. I don't have any problem with dropping processors before the Pentium class machines (aka I686), my question was only a naming question. Why are some RPMs named el6.i386, and some with el6.i686. It must make automated package selection algorithms more difficult. David