[Wouter Verhelst]
> Both amd64 and x86_64 are names that AMD coined to describe the
> architecture. They changed their opinion at some point, I don't know
> which is the most recent name they chose.
AMD64 is the newer name. When Intel released their clone chip, the
Linux kernel was still using the older x86-64 name, but Debian's amd64
project had already switched to the new name. Linus Torvalds read
Intel's announcement and was a bit disgusted that Intel tried as hard
as they could to imply (without actually saying so) that the
architecture was their own invention - he said he was sorely tempted to
call it "amd64" in kernel-land, but pragmatism won out over emotion.
As I recall, Debian kept the new name partly because it would have been
annoying to change back, but also to avoid the '-' and '_' characters,
which can be problematic in some contexts (like autoconf tuples or .deb
filenames). And "x8664" just looks funny. ("x86=64" would have been
amusing too. Is it a veiled Commodore 64 reference, or is it
quoted-printable?)
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