What happens if I install linux designed for the i386 architecture on a laptop with an x86 architecture?

as far as i know, i386 and x86 are the exactly the same because they are they are both 32bit. see wikipedia

You should have no problems. Just make sure that it doesent say x86_64 because that would be 64bit not 32bit

I believe it will work. You just need to make sure you get the proper “bit” version for your processor.

edit :: what deathfrombelow said.

it will work; most modern CPUs are compatible with 386; there are some linux distributions that are compiled specifically for i686 (Intel Pentium Po, Pentium II and better), but there is a lot of discussion about the performance improvements that this’ll get you.

For instance, Arch Linux is compiled for i686.

Ubuntu is compiled for 386, but it seems that the recent kernel versions support most of the newest improvements on CPUS, such as Symmetric Multiprocessing (for instance, Dual Core processors), so there’s not a huge performance difference… you could check out the Ubuntu Forums for more info on this