Re: Dropping support for the smallest armel machines
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 03:13:48PM +0200, Arnaud Patard wrote:
> Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> writes:
>
> > We have a recurring problem with building kernels for armel: three
> > flavours (iop32x, ixp4xx, orion5x) require the kernel image size to be
> > less than 1.4-1.5 MB in order to fit into a fixed flash partition.
> >
> > As more features continue to be added to Linux and cannot always
> > configurable as a module, it is necessary to override and disable them
> > on these three configurations[1]. I don't think this is sustainable
> > unless someone who particularly cares about these older platforms steps
> > up to take on this task.
> >
> > The iop32x and ixp4xx hardware appears to been discontinued in 2008. If
> > we remove these flavours now, they will still be supported in Debian 7
> > until 2016. I think 8 years of support is pretty good.
>
> btw, iop32x is used on n2100 which are used on buildd/porter boxes. If
> we stop supporting it, I'm not sure how the DSA people will react about
> that.
[...]
Bet they're slower than QEMU versatile emulation on an x86. And DSA
loves virtual machines. :-)
Ben.
--
Ben Hutchings
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
- Albert Camus
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