11-09-2012
The terms are used interchangeably on a lot of Linux distros. 386 was the first popular CPU architecture in the line their current processors descend from. Since it's an Intel processor they're referring to they prefix it with a lower case "i". It's since become a shorthand way of referring to "386-family processors" or at this point "Intel-style processors."
So "i386" means technically the Intel processor that came out in the mid-80's but it's more general than that in the FOSS world. After 80386 I believe Intel released a 80486 and a 80586. So "i686" (being a model number they hadn't reached by the time they stopped making the 80x86 processors) is a shorthand way of saying "386-style processor but newer than that specific line" Which usually means Pentium since that's what came later.
So technically i686 is a subset of i386, but at this point you're not going to run into a "i386" processor that is from the 80's so the terms are used interchangeably.
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LEARN ABOUT MOJAVE
hostinfo
hostinfo(8) BSD System Manager's Manual hostinfo(8)
NAME
hostinfo -- host information
SYNOPSIS
hostinfo
DESCRIPTION
The hostinfo command displays information about the host system on which the command is executing. The output includes a kernel version
description, processor configuration data, available physical memory, and various scheduling statistics.
OPTIONS
There are no options.
DISPLAY
Mach kernel version:
The version string compiled into the kernel executing on the host system.
Processor Configuration:
The maximum possible processors for which the kernel is configured, followed by the number of physical and logical processors avail-
able.
Note: on Intel architectures, physical processors are referred to as cores, and logical processors are referred to as hardware threads;
there may be multiple logical processors per core and multiple cores per processor package. This command does not report the number of
processor packages.
Processor type:
The host's processor type and subtype.
Processor active:
A list of active processors on the host system. Active processors are members of a processor set and are ready to dispatch threads.
On a single processor system, the active processor, is processor 0.
Primary memory available:
The amount of physical memory that is configured for use on the host system.
Default processor set:
Displays the number of tasks currently assigned to the host processor set, the number of threads currently assigned to the host proces-
sor set, and the number of processors included in the host processor set.
Load average:
Measures the average number of threads in the run queue.
Mach factor:
A variant of the load average which measures the processing resources available to a new thread. Mach factor is based on the number of
CPUs divided by (1 + the number of runnablethreads) or the number of CPUs minus the number of runnable threads when the number of
runnable threads is less than the number of CPUs. The closer the Mach factor value is to zero, the higher the load. On an idle system
with a fixed number of active processors, the mach factor will be equal to the number of CPUs.
SEE ALSO
sysctl(8)
Mac OS X October 30, 2003 Mac OS X