CRUX is a lightweight, i686-optimized Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users. In the new version (195 MB ISO), there are about 45 package updates including glibc 2.2.5, XFree86 4.2, and kernel 2.4.18. Mozilla 0.9.9 is now the default browser. Pkgutils 4.1 provides means to protect selected configuration files from being overwritten when upgrading packages.
CRUX 0.9.3 Released
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Eugenia Loli
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Pardon me, but might I ask what processor the 686 is? Is this some x86-64 chip?
i686 class cpu’s are those derived from the pentium pro. Thus including the PII, PIII, etc. or compatible cpu’s such as Athlon/Duron’s.
nivenh
686 is a pentium II/III/IV/Celeron, AMD K6 I/II, Athlon
686 is basically a way of saying Pentium Pro or higher(ie-Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Celeron) processor. The gist is Crux is optimized for Pentium-processors and probably cannot be used on anything slower than any 166 mHz Pentium-class computer.
“i686” is a term used to describe processors that are compatible with the Intel Pentium Pro architecture. This includes the Pentium II/III and the Celeron.
The Pentium 4 is an entirely new chip but is backwards-compatible with i686 code.
AMD Athlons and Durons have their own architecture, but are also compatible with i686. The AMD K5 and K6 series are Pentium-class, and so are i586 compatible.
The 686 is a two-generation old x86 design from the Pentium family. I *think* it’s 2gen old – I’m counting the PIII and P4 as their own generations, ‘cuz they had some extensive changes from previous proc’s…
I think 686 refers to Intel’s Celeron/Pentium Pro/II/III line of processors. Although I’m not entirely positive. But knowing how demonstratively conceited most geeks are, I know I’ll be very quickly corrected if I’m wrong :o)
i586 = Pentium/Pentium MMX
i686 = PentiumII and newer.
386, 486, 586 (Pentium), 686 (pII) …
386, 486, 586 (Pentium), 686 (pII) …
I think they mean Pentium II and compatibales
i686 is a Pentium2. They were introduced many years ago =) Pentium3 and 4 share the same branding (i686), too.
yet another i686-optimized linux distro for advanced users.
486 = basic X86
586, i586 = Pentium 1, AMD k6, Cyris M-II – ie basic multimedia extended
686, i686 = 2nd generation pentium class chip – all Pent – II,III,IV, Celeron, AMD K6/2/3/Duron/Athlon, etc…
IE dont try installing it on a 486! 686 is a regular 32-bit microprocessor with enhanced instruction-set for multimedia operations, basically.
The i686 is the intel 686 family, the 6 is suppose to mean that it’s the 6th processor generation of the x86 architechure. The first i686 chip was the Pentium Pro. The Pentium II, Pentium III and Celeron are all i686 chips. The Pentium 4 is regarded as the i787.
bit of hustory:
i386 1st 32bit x86 chip
i486 combine chip and co-procesor
i586 The origanal Pentium
as for the x86-64 well only thing that’s know as at the moment is the Hammer, though supposedly Intel are working on 64bit extensions for it’s latest version of the i786.
as regard Linux, well alot of Linux distributions are i386 optimised hence you can run them on any intel platform from the 386 up, Redhat is like this though they also included i686 optimised kernel rpm. I think Mandrake is i486 or i586 optimised.
dunno.. could be PII or higher.. could be..
i386 = 386
i486 = 486
i586 = Pentium and Pentium II
i686 = Pentium III
I don’t know about the intel chips though.
Pentium 2-3/AMD k6-Athlon i.e. pentium pro
right after i586, the pentium
The i686 is anything over the classic Pentium if i remember correctly (in the IA-32 architecture). So that would mean the P2, P3, P4, Athlon, Duron. Some im not sure about are the PPro, K6, K6-2 and K6-3, and i dont think Cyrix ever made a chip which would fall under the 686 category.
This is by far the best distro since the old days of turbolinux circa 3.0 days. for all of you FreeBSD users, try this distro.
The 686 refers to pentium II, III amd K7 etc. I do remember however, that someone was releasing and ISO for the 586 platform.
It’s too bad the ISO is 195MB. 15MB smaller and they could have fit it on a mini-CDR. Oh well, maybe next release.
“Pardon me, but might I ask what processor the 686 is? Is this some x86-64 chip?”
i686 is second and third generation pentiums. 1st generation pentiums however, are i586.
“This is by far the best distro since the old days of turbolinux circa 3.0 days. for all of you FreeBSD users, try this distro.”
Why? More than 10 years of working with both FreeBSD and Linux has convinced me that FreeBSD is a superior OS. The very nature of its design philosophy protects it from the many compatibility problems and such that plague Linux.
“Why? More than 10 years of working with both FreeBSD and Linux has convinced me that FreeBSD is a superior OS.”
Just so that some purist doesn’t try to say I am a moron…
Yes, I know that FreeBSD has not been around for 10 years. What I meant by this was that I had been working them in general for about 10 years. Linux for about 10 years. FreeBSD for about 7.
I’m just wondering why 25 people felt the need to explain to the first poster what i686 was. I thought my 2nd post to the thread in response was sufficient.
nivenh
Because all these comments were posted in the night of Saturday, a time that the OSNews members sleep. Therefore, none of these messages gone live at the time of their post, so other people did not know that other people had already posted on the subject. So, when we woke up, we had 25 messages waiting authorization, all answering the same question. Sorry about that, but it has become _imperative_ that we do not allow immediate posting, we have some problems with some trolls lately, because OSNews draws more and more people these days. We try to keep the forum “clean” though, even if there is some delay on posting. ZDNews and News.com have the same policy too.
;o)
I bet you that if someone changes the package format to use .tar.bz2 instead of .tar.gz tarballs, the distribution will shrink just enough to fit on one of those 181 megabyte mini-CDs. As an aisde, there are 210 MB mini-CDs out there, and CRUX will fit nicely on one of them. I don’t trust stretching the RedBook spec that far myself; some CD ROMs won’t be able to read something with the data packed that tightly.
– Sam
I haven’t used the “*nix” compression algorythms enough to weigh in on if that will shrink it the 10 megs or so, but I have used black hole enough to know that it can do some pretty amazing compression (I compressed a folder that was 100 megs down to less then 4, zip only got it to a little over 14). for all I know a tarball would’ve been even smaller though.