Hi Emil,
this is due to a logical bug in the atlas spkg: the system-wide variable SAGE_FAT_BINARY currently takes precedence over the specific variable SAGE_ATLAS_ARCH as explained in the trac ticket http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/13706
A possible workaround until it is fixed is:
- cd ${YOUR_SAGE_ROOT}/spkg/standard/
- tar xvf atlas-3.8.4.p1.spkg
- modify atlas-3.8.4.p1/spkg-install according to the proposed patch http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/attachment/ticket/13706/trac_13706-atlas_arch-tm.patch (this is around line 203).
- tar cvf atlas-3.8.4.p1.spkg atlas-3.8.4.p1
- compile as usually exporting SAGE_FAT_BINARY='yes' and SAGE_ATLAS_ARCH='PIII'
Ciao,
Thierry