Should I download i386.rpm or i686.rpm?

There are several RPM packages that can be directly installed: *. 386.rpm, *. 486.rpm, *. 586.rpm, *. 686.rpm. generally, all x86 processors can execute a 386 instruction set. 80486 processor, of course, requires 486 optimization; Pentium is 586; after pentiumpro (P6), it is collectively referred to as 686, it contains pentiumpro, Pentium II, Pentium III, P4. I386, i586, and i686 refer to the microprocessor applicable to Intel i386, i586, and i686 compatible instruction sets. Some new instruction sets are added for each generation of CPU, but they are backward compatible. In order to make full use of the CPU performance, these software packages add commands corresponding to the CPU. Therefore, different software packages are generated. Therefore, the i686 software package can be executed on the CPU above the Pentium second generation, but basically cannot be executed on the first CPU such as 486. The i386 software package can be executed either on the i386 computer or on all the later CPUs (for example, Ben san, but cannot play the best performance of the CPU .)

Another type of software package is the suffix *. SRC. rpm. This type of software package is a source program package and cannot be directly installed and run. It must be compiled first. Software packages with corresponding suffixes are generated based on the CPU type during compilation. Also, the same is true for compiling the kernel. Generally, there is no major performance difference between i386 and i686 on i686 computers.