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When people are talking about different platforms *(i386,i586,i686 etc)*. I never understood certain things about it. Of course were dealing with the hardware factor, stating this is an intel platform. But when they say for example. "The linux IA32" platform, they are talking about the software factor of the OS itself, correct ?
Orr, have I completely mis-understood the vital facts ?
The simple answer is that software needs to be build for a specific hardware platform. So Linux IA32 is specifically build for the IA32 architecture. You cannot run Linux IA32 on a MIPS platform for example. Then there is binary compatible and software compatible.
Binary compatible means you can run the pre-build software (the binaries) and run them on another platform. Software build for I386 can run on AMD64 for example.
Software compatible means you can use the exact same source but you will need to recompile for a perticular platform. I cannot remember an example for this ;)