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I am trying to install debian on local computer with Windows 7 OS and intel core i5 processor.

On the download page. I was asked to select my processor architecture with the following options listed

amd64
armel
kfreebsd-i386
kfreebsd-amd64
i386
ia64
mips
mipsel
powerpc
sparc

From my little research, i would say my processor architecture is not listed above as intel core i5 is a processor architecture in itself. am i right?

If so, which do I select for my debian installation?

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    @kayfun, it would be easier for you if you've just read descriptions of sites (and FAQs linked in site header).
    – Griwes
    Jul 4, 2012 at 10:43
  • Running lscpu in the terminal was helpful for me: askubuntu.com/a/133123/48214
    – Ryan
    Aug 17, 2021 at 0:14

3 Answers 3

16

No, i5 is market name. Architecture is AMD64, with various microarchitectures being sold under i5 brand.

AMD64 is original name for AMD's x86 extension, providing long mode (64bit operating mode), while models of various microarchitectures that Intel sells under i5 brand are implementations of it.

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  • 2
    To be specific, the CPU arch is "EM64T" or "Intel 64", both of which fall under "amd64" in the Linux kernel (although they are not copies of AMD64). Jul 4, 2012 at 10:27
  • 2
    @IgnacioVazquez-Abrams, it's Intel's implementation of AMD64, indeed called Intel 64, IA-32e or whatever else. In most aspects, they are identical, and Intel's implementations are also called AMD64 in most situations, so did I.
    – Griwes
    Jul 4, 2012 at 10:31
  • Erm, EM64T is just a name Intel gave to the AMD64 ISA when they started selling those. Jul 4, 2012 at 10:34
1

Just select AMD64. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 And Intel core i5 is one of its implementations.

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intel core i5 processor would fall under the ia64, not amd64. both amd64 & ia64 CAN run each others code, but, not effectively because of their are slight design differences between the two. ie ia64 processors acutely waits for a clock cycle on an NOP instruction, vs amd64 simply moves on to the next instruction. ia64 processors has trouble running 32 bit code at full speed, wear as amd64 can run 32 bit code at full processor clock speed (but, could run more effectively at 64 bit). plus, you have to make ia64 code HT aware for maximum provenance on that processor; amd64 processors doesn't require such overhead on their 12 or 16 (true) processors.

btw. the intel core i5 processor ONLY has 8 true cores/processors & 8 HT processors; amd64 has 16 true cores & cost a heck of a lot less than the ia64 version.

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  • 3
    No, that's wrong. IA64 is the Itanium architecture, completely different from AMD64, and used by none of Intel's 64-bit desktop CPUs, only a few Itanium-branded server CPUs.
    – Mike Scott
    Dec 22, 2012 at 19:33
  • 4
    You're probably confusing IA64 (aka Itanium) with Intel 64. The former, as mentioned, is different from, and incompatible with, x86-64. Intel 64 is what Intel calls their x86-64 implementation, just like AMD calls theirs AMD64. Linux distros generally call both (or indeed, any implementation of x86-64) AMD64, so that's what the Core i5 falls under. On a separate note, there are no i5 CPUs with 8 cores. You can't even get one with 8 virtual cores because no quad-core i5 has HyperThreading. There are 8-core (and even 10-core) Xeons with HT, though.
    – Indrek
    Dec 22, 2012 at 21:00
  • AMD64 / x86e / x86-64, and even x64 (for those that thing that the older one was 86 bit) is one architecture with many name. It is backward compatible with x86 / x86-32. IA64 is something completely different, it is a much older 64 bit processor from intel. IA64 is not compatible with x86 or x86-64 Jul 30, 2017 at 14:31
  • I am not sure that anything else in this answer is correct: all amd's 64bit x86 have 16 cores (where did you get that from). This looks like a case of trying to sound like you know what you are talking about. but every thing I see is wrong or I don't know anything about it. Jul 30, 2017 at 14:35

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