[Flaimbait] "amd64" vs "x86-64"

Peter Wemm peter at wemm.org
Fri Dec 17 13:20:31 PST 2004


On Friday 17 December 2004 12:58 pm, Ceri Davies wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 11:48:06AM -0800, Mike Hunter wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I was wondering if anybody here has discussed the difference in
> > terminology between FreeBSD and Linux regarding the amd64
> > architecture. Now that Intel is making chips that support AMD's
> > instruction set, one could argue that it would be better to use a
> > vendor-neutral term to describe the architecture.
> >
> > I condemn Intel for the games they've played over AMD's
> > architecture, and I'm bringing this up to try to be "fair" to
> > Intel; I'm only bringing it up as something that should be
> > discussed as a possible help to the FreeBSD community as this
> > architecture moves forward.  Would the FreeBSD community stand to
> > benefit to adopt Linux's "x86-64" terminology?
>
> It's already been discussed and we're sticking with "amd64" as it was
> the first platform that we supported.  NetBSD have also moved to
> "amd64" from "x86-64".  Check the archives for further details.

Also, the gnu folks seems split to a degree.  eg: binutils calls it 
amd64.

There is no way in hell we're using "x86-64" if I have any say in it 
because it isn't a valid C token.  "x86_64" is a PITA to type.  I 
thought I saw somewhere that microsoft switched from "amd64" to "x64"..

-- 
Peter Wemm - peter at wemm.org; peter at FreeBSD.org; peter at yahoo-inc.com
"All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5


More information about the freebsd-amd64 mailing list