Re: Intel vs AMD x86-64

Vojtech Pavlik
2004-02-22T10:00:14Z

On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 07:12:20PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Herbert Poetzl wrote:
> >
> > hmm, so the current x86_64 will be changed to x86-64 or
> > will there be x86_64 and x86-64?
>
> No. The filesystem policy _tends_ to be that dashes and spaces are turned
> into underscores when used as filenames. Don't ask me why (well, the space
> part is obvious, since real spaces tend to be a pain to use on the command
> line, but don't ask me why people tend to conver a dash to an underscore).
>
> So the real name is (and has always been, as far as I can tell) x86-64.

As far as I know, the real reason for the underscore in x86_64 in Linux
is that autoconf/configure hate dashes in arch names, because of this
notation:

x86_64-gnu-linux-pc

If a dash were used, the string would be unparseable without prior
knowledge of all arch names.

--
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs, SuSE CR