> >- if you run 32bit kernel on x86_64 it wont report itself as x86_64 but > > i686 or athlon, this will cause various places (including anaconda > > Newbie-ish question... what exactly is the difference between i686 and > x86_64? I imagine athlon is specifically for AMD 64-bit processors? > > Is there a weblink that explains what each of the flags in /proc/cpuinfo > stands for? > One short answer is that a 32-bit CPU (i386 - Pentium, Athlon, etc.) uses 32-bit addressing, while a 64-bit CPU (x86_64 - Opteron, Itanium, etc.) uses 64-bit addressing -- meaning your OS and applications can address more than 4 GB of memory at one time. hth, Klaus
