Meaning of hardware platform in uname command ouput man uname -m, --machine print the machine hardware name -i, --hardware-platform print the hardware platform or "unknown" What exactly is meant by hardware platform here and how is it different from the "machine hardware name"? I found some related questions on SE but there seems to be some contradictions among the accepted answers. Where can I find accurate information about this nomenclature?

A bit more info in `info uname`:


`-i'
`--hardware-platform'
Print the hardware platform name (sometimes called the hardware
implementation). Print `unknown' if the kernel does not make this
information easily available, as is the case with Linux kernels.

`-m'
`--machine'
Print the machine hardware name (sometimes called the hardware
class or hardware type).


Basically classification types - you can have different hw implementations (-i) but with/in the same hw class (-m).

Used, for example, to differentiate between kernel modules shared by the same hw class and modules specific to a certain hw implementation.