[Wolves] i586/i686 the difference is?

[Philip Moore]

On Wednesday 04 August 2004 16:22, Peter Evans wrote:
> Ok,
>
> I'm new to Linux and still very much learning (lurching?) my way around, so
> please bear with me if I'm asking about the blindingly obvious.
>
> One thing that has confused me a little is the actual difference between
> the i586 and i686 flavours of binaries that are out there.  I'm currently
> running SuSE 9.1 on an old Pentium III laptop.  When I fire up the KDE
> control centre it confidently tells me the machine is i686.  But when I
> look on kde.org they only have binary downloads for i586 for KDE 3.2.3 and
> I have to ask myself what the difference is and if I download and install
> the i586 stuff on my i686 installation what will be the effect, if any?


Hi

My understanding is that the reference (e.g. i586) refers to the package 
architecture - a quote from Debian states:  

"To minimize confusion, we will want to specify a new architecture for our 
packages: i586"

I have never found this to be an issue when considering specific disros.

I will be interested in other responses to this question from those more 
knowledgeable than I

Philip Moore


> A recent irritation is that when logging onto my user account all of my
> desktop icons are sitting in a little cluster on top of each other in the
> top left of the screen.  Yes, I've been fiddling with themes, icon sets and
> even fonts, but if anyone can tell me how to fix this or even tell me why
> it's happening I'd be grateful.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Pete Evans.
>
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