Live CD's and Install Media's arch inconsistent

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Mon, 16 May 2011 16:09:34 -0400
Joshua Jensen <joshua at joshuajensen.org> wrote:

> I understand that Red Hat and Fedora releases have a lot of history
> around the architectural optimization in the "x86" space, complete
> with lots of heated debate.
> 
> However, Fedora, with its current arch-optimizations, is starting to
> contradict itself, even in its own name(s).

It's not (intentionally) doing that. ;) 

> See http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease ... the Install Media
> download is called "i386", but the Live CD is referred to as "i686".
> Surely the live CD isn't arch-optimized differently from the release
> itself?  If not, Fedora needs to be consistent.
> 
> The arch-specific packages in the 32bit release all seem to end in
> "i686.rpm", so I'm guessing that the answer is that "i686" is
> correct.  However, it may be more of an issue of intention or
> support.  If the packages are intended for and supported on a true
> i386 machine, then the Live CD references and ISO filenames need to
> be renamed with "i386".  If they aren't, and are intended only for a
> i686 processor or greater, then the Install Media references and ISO
> filenames need to be renamed with "i686".  It's either one or the
> other, not both!
> 
> Fedora needs to be consistent.  I would like to propose that starting
> with Fedora 16 development process that both the install and live
> media have the same arch name.
> 
> 
> Thoughts?

I agree it's confusing. 

When I pointed this out a while back, it was suggested we just change
everything to i386 to mean "32bit cpus we support", but thats confusing
too. Perhaps we change the i386 places to '32bit' and the rpms leave as
i686. Not sure what the best answer is, as those terms are overloaded
and confusing. ;) 

I'd suggest opening up a fesco ticket on this and/or re-posting on the
devel list as this it's so much a Board issue. 

kevin
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