This is a real stupid question, but what does i386 or i686 mean. After installing Red Hat 7.3 on my sytems, I noticed in a few places after the install the the packages installed show i686 instead of i386. The computer that it was installed in is a pentium 2 400.
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i386, i686
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iSeriesCodePoet
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386 is an old processor. Many call the Pentium 2 and above 686. iSeriesCodePoet
IBM iSeries (AS/400) Programmer
![[pc2]](/data/assets/smilies/pc2.gif "[pc2] [pc2]")
IBM iSeries (AS/400) Programmer
'Tis true. After the Intel 80486, usually just called the 486, Intel started giving their processors a name because you can't copywrite a number. The one that would have been the 586 became the Pentium. 686 was the pentium 2 but they came up with other names as well so the 686 just means anything newer than the original pentium. When you see a program with i386, it means the code is downwardly compatible with the 386 but will take advantage of the newer processors too. A program designated as 686, may not run on anything below Pentium 2.
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