topic i386 vs i686 in Operating System - Linux

i386 vs i686

Venkata_2 — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 15:51:16 GMT

I compiled Linux 2.4.18 with the P4 option enabled. However when I do a uname -a I get still get i386 in the output ?
Am I interpreting the output wrong ?
What advantages do I get by compiliing specifically for P4 over a P2 or a P3 ?

Re: i386 vs i686

Bruce Copeland — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 20:05:19 GMT

Hmmm. You should get i686 in there somewhere. Mine looks like

Linux proteomebook.cybersym.com 2.4.20 #2 Sun Feb 2 19:44:07 MST 2003 i686 i686
i386 GNU/Linux

for a P3 Celeron. If you choose P2 or P3, then the kernel doesn't take advantage of any P4 processor features.

Bruce

Re: i386 vs i686

Stuart Browne — Tue, 11 Mar 2003 23:17:32 GMT

Ok, so lets see.. at this question in 'make config':

Processor family (386, 486, 586/K5/5x86/6x86/6x86MX, Pentium-Classic, Pentium-MM
X, Pentium-Pro/Celeron/Pentium-II, Pentium-III/Celeron(Coppermine), Pentium-4, K
6/K6-II/K6-III, Athlon/Duron/K7, Elan, Crusoe, Winchip-C6, Winchip-2, Winchip-2A
/Winchip-3, CyrixIII/VIA-C3/VIA-C5) [386]

You answered "Pentium-4", and in the '/usr/src/linux-2.4/.config' file, you've got "CONFIG_PENTIUM4=y", yes?

If that's the case, and you then went through, and executed 'make bzImage', 'make modules' and 'make modules_install', manually copied the 'vmlinuz' to the correct place, made the correct entries in the /etc/grup.conf (or lilo.conf), and rebooted, then it should be showing 'i686' as Bruce said.

If you didn't do all of that, tell us what you have done so we can guide you through the steps you need to correct the issue.