From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 6 12:19:47 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E0E837B404 for ; Fri, 6 Jun 2003 12:19:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.uk.alink.co.za (mail.alink.co.za [213.253.1.230]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7F1443F93 for ; Fri, 6 Jun 2003 12:19:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from george@alink.co.za) Received: from [217.158.80.249] (helo=D9NLZD0J) by mail.uk.alink.co.za with smtp (Exim 3.36 #5) id 19OMkO-000N87-00; Fri, 06 Jun 2003 20:19:32 +0100 Message-ID: <007501c32c60$682fee00$0100000a@D9NLZD0J> From: "George Barnett" To: "Rahul Siddharthan" , References: <20030605165217.A388@online.fr> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 20:18:27 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4922.1500 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4925.2800 Subject: Re: Peeve: why "i386"? X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 19:19:47 -0000 From: "Rahul Siddharthan" > Why do all the BSDs continue to refer to the 32 bit Intel architecture > as i386 even when they typically won't even install on an i386 any > more? Why not call it x86, or ia32, if not in the kernel config then > at least in the release notes and documentation, as everyone else has > been doing for years? The reason it's done this way is so that once every 6 months there can be a mundane argument on various lists about some minor cosmetic name that non-geeks don't care about anyway. :-) /bad week --george