Hi,

> Does anyone know how to specify generic i586 or i386 builds when
> compiling programs, I have googled and cant find the answer.

export CFLAGS="-march=i586 (...)"
export CXXFLAGS=${CFLAGS}

This should work. Take a look at the configure script options
(./configure --help), I think that there are some parameters that can be
specified here too.

Cheers.