* Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.cx> [030426 22:29]: > > > >>> 1a. create a stripped down version for i386, i.e. required/important > > > >>> and go for i486. > > > >> Is there much performance improvement in dropping i386 in favour of i486+? > > > > > > > - Integrated math coprocessor ( why does libc still check for its > > > > availability? ) [...] > > > > > > 486SX. > > > > I thought that in-kernel emulation would have solved the gap between 486 > > DX and SX. > > For practical purposes, yes... Although emulated FP is really, REALLY > slow. I installed a machine to be a X terminal about two years ago - > 386SX, 8MB RAM. It worked fine, yes... But MUCH slower than a > similarly-configured machine with a hardware FP unit, to the point of > deciding it would be a text terminal, with no X :) I agree completely -- in todays world of CPU's capable of many millions of FP operations/s you really don't want a 486SX. However, in the context of our conversation it makes no difference that the performance sucks. A 486 is a 486 as far as a Debian package is concerned. We don't need to consider the 486SX when deciding where the architecture split should be. B. -- WebSig: http://www.jukie.net/~bart/sig/
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