Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 16:55:15 +0100 From: Ceri Davies <ceri@FreeBSD.org> To: Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Peeve: why "i386"? Message-ID: <20030606155515.GA74073@submonkey.net> In-Reply-To: <20030606142103.GF49662@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <20030605165217.A388@online.fr> <3EE04920.7B8EA51F@mindspring.com> <20030606133528.GA9414@online.fr> <20030606142103.GF49662@iconoplex.co.uk>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 03:21:03PM +0100, Paul Robinson wrote: > On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 09:35:28AM -0400, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > Most people even today only know windows, have only foggy ideas of > > linux, and don't know BSD at all. I don't see why we should further > > confuse them with talk of i386. > > And you think windows users, managers, office workers, etc. - they know what > an IA-32 architecture is do they? But get confused when talking about i386? > Impressive. Most of the office workers I've worked within in the past didn't > know the difference between RAM and hard disk storage. Your office must have > come along quite a way. > > If you know what IA-32 is, but don't know what i386 is, you're not somebody > who should be reading the documentation that refers to the phrase "i386" > without qualification of what it means. For example: > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html > > makes it prefectly clear that an i386 is a PC. Where exactly do you perceive > there being a problem? The MD of a local company is not likely to want to > know how to re-build his kernel, so won't care whether we refer to i386 or > ia32 - he just wants a box that works. > > Of course, if you really want to do it, I'm sure the doc project will take > your patches and amend their policy to make it clear that the PCs will be > referred to as IA-32 rather than i386. I just don't see the point, as it is > likely to cause more ambiguity within the FBSD crowd than it would solve. Actually, I'd oppose that change. Ceri -- User: DO YOU ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR PERSONAL LORD AND SAVIOR? Iniaes: Sure, I can accept all forms of payment. -- www.chatterboxchallenge.com [-- Attachment #2 --] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE+4LljocfcwTS3JF8RAr3BAKC29pEPNTKFALtvPggdZz1yclxDJQCgleSi wnAOjC51e9fBji3BdRP15xc= =Tlev -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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