evan Posted March 25, 2004 Share Posted March 25, 2004 Hi, I just heard that if you want to install dropline gnome for your slackware, your machine must be i686. and I went to slackware website, its explaination for i686 machine is things like P4. So, my question is I got a P4 laptop, and installed slackware, but why there is a directory named "i486-slackware-linux" in my /usr directory? does it mean the one installed on my machine is for i484 and not for i686? Or where can I confirm this info somewhere in my system? thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 25, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 25, 2004 I think that is because Slack may support i486 and better. My Fedora is i386, but it doesn't mean that I am running with a kernel that uses only 80386 compatibility. At least, I don't think so... :unsure: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaKeY Posted March 25, 2004 Share Posted March 25, 2004 ...but it doesn't mean that I am running with a kernel that uses only 80386 compatibility. At least, I don't think so... :unsure: No but its not taking full advantage of your hardware either. Thats why you get generally get better performance after recompiling your kernel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gism0 Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 I think that is because Slack may support i486 and better. My Fedora is i386, but it doesn't mean that I am running with a kernel that uses only 80386 compatibility. At least, I don't think so... :unsure: Basically it only uses what's available in 386 processors and doesn't take advantage of all the cool stuff modern processors have, you should really compile your own kernel and select the correct processor, etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splatnix Posted March 26, 2004 Share Posted March 26, 2004 Slackware is compiled using the i486 spec. It doesn't take advantage of newer technologies in CPUs like MMX/MMX2, SSE/SSE2/SSE3 [mostly Intel... mostly], 3Dnow! [AMD only] and other such optimizations that have come around. But don't worry - this isn't really that big of an issue - for the most part anyway. Dropline GNOME is compiled using the i686 spec. This is why, on the whole, if you're running GNOME on Pentium II/Pro/Celeron hardware or newer, you will see a speed increase over the default GNOME that ships with Slackware. This is also because it includes a copy of XFree86 that is i686 compiled as well. Many distros out there are not compiled against the i686 spec for compatibility with older hardware. RedHat/Fedora and Debian use i386. Slackware is i486. Mandrake and [AFAIK] SuSE are i586. Arch Linux [AFAIK] is i686. In some key places you will notice a difference with the optimizations that something is compiled with. This is most notably visable in multimedia, as it allows them to take advantage of the multimedia enhancements in CPUs; also the kernel is a key place. You probably won't see much of a difference between postfix or apache as i386 or i686. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MulletRobZ Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Slackware 9.0 uses the i386 structure and Slackware 9.1 uses the i486 structure, but this should not matter. I tried Dropline GNOME in Slackware 9.0 and the only problem involved screwing up the KDE login manager, so it didn't cause a lot of havoc. Even P3's are considered as i686. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldbond Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Dosen't really matter if its not an i686, you can still install dropline gnome on it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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