What Is i686 in Linux/Unix?

The term i686 is the most commonly seen as a suffix to binary packages (such as RPM packages) to be installed on a Linux system. It simply means that the package was designed to be installed on the 686 based machines, ie. 686 class machines such as the Celeron 766.

Packages for this class of machine will run on later x86 based systems but there is no guarantee that they will run on i386 class machines if there have been too many processor-based optimizations implemented by the developer.

Source:

Binh / Linux Dictionary V 0.16
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Dictionary/html/index.html
Author: Binh Nguyen linuxfilesystem(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au
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