Bug 683133

Summary:	Live CD's and Install Media's arch inconsistent
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	joshua
Component:	distribution	Assignee:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status:	CLOSED CANTFIX	QA Contact:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	rawhide	CC:	dcantrell, elad, rvokal, stephent98
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2011-05-13 16:37:11 UTC	Type:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description joshua 2011-03-08 16:22:14 UTC

Description of problem:

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).

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.

Comment 1 Elad Alfassa 2011-04-27 05:27:51 UTC

Packages are optimized for i686, but the mirrors still use i386 folder for them, I agree it's really confusing.

Comment 2 Steve Tyler 2011-05-12 15:48:46 UTC

According to the uname man page, the field that is "i386" below is the "hardware platform". My interpretation of this is that it means the platform has an x86, 32-bit architecture. That might be better denoted as "x86_32" ...

$ uname -a
Linux spruce 2.6.38.5-24.fc15.i686 #1 SMP Fri May 6 08:02:58 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Comment 3 Steve Tyler 2011-05-13 09:55:47 UTC

Intel's own terminology:

Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals
http://developer.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/index.htm

"These manuals describe the architecture and programming environment of the Intel® 64 and IA-32 processors."

Comment 4 Steve Tyler 2011-05-13 11:14:55 UTC

The F14 release notes say:

"Fedora 14 requires an Intel Pentium Pro or better processor, and is optimized for i686 and later processors."
file:///usr/share/doc/HTML/fedora-release-notes/en-US/sect-Release_Notes-Welcome_to_Fedora_14.html#sect-Release_Notes-Hardware_Overview

So, it seems that the problem is whether the ISO image names should contain the architecture or the optimization.

In any case, "i386" makes Fedora seem obsolescent, so from a marketing perspective, it should be eliminated.

Comment 5 Jesse Keating 2011-05-13 16:37:11 UTC

As this plays into far more than just the tools to create the isos, I suggest you bring this up at a FESCo or even Fedora Board level.  Bugzilla is inappropriate for such discussion.