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Old 23rd September 2008
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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I think you're confused, even the latest Intel processor can run code for the original 8086.. it's called backwards compatibility.

AMD/VIA/Intel, are manufactures.. Intel created the x86 architecture, and others have produced clones.

The BSD projects call their x86 port "i386" because that was the start of the 32-bit x86 architecture... the port originally being for the Intel 386 processor.

Some time ago, Intel had the idea to phase out the x86 architecture due to all the legacy.. their Itanium architecture, the reception was poor, AMD took it upon itself to create a 64-bit extension of the x86 architecture, "AMD64".

People liked it, in fact... so much so... Intel cloned AMD's work and produced their own "AMD64" compatible systems, "EMT64" was their code name.. they call it "Intel 64" now, most people call both compatible systems "x86-64" as a generic moniker.

The BSD's do not call their port "x86-64", because it was orignally of AMD's creation.. thus it's called "amd64".

So, to answer your original question... will the i386 port of FreeBSD run on a VIA x86 clone? Yes, it probably will.. assuming the device has a traditional PC BIOS and not some sort of custom boot infrastructure.

Hope that helps.
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