Re: Bypassing the 2/3/4GB virtual memory space on 32-bit ports
On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 7:29 PM Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> wrote:
> Your entire argument is built on the premise that it is actually
> desirable for these applications (compilers, linkers, etc) to work in
> 32-bit address spaces.
that's right [and in another message in the thread it was mentioned
that builds have to be done natively. the reasons are to do with
mistakes that cross-compiling, particularly during autoconf
hardware/feature-detection, can introduce *into the binary*. with
40,000 packages to build, it is just far too much extra work to
analyse even a fraction of them]
at the beginning of the thread, the very first thing that was
mentioned was: is it acceptable for all of us to abdicate
responsibility and, "by default" - by failing to take that
responsibility - end up indirectly responsible for the destruction and
consignment to landfill of otherwise perfectly good [32-bit] hardware?
now, if that is something that you - all of you - find to be perfectly
acceptable, then please continue to not make the decision to take any
action, and come up with whatever justifications you see fit which
will help you to ignore the consequences.
that's the "tough, reality-as-it-is, in-your-face" way to look at it.
the _other_ way to look at is: "nobody's paying any of us to do this,
we're perfectly fine doing what we're doing, we're perfectly okay with
western resources, we can get nice high-end hardware, i'm doing fine,
why should i care??".
this perspective was one that i first encountered during a ukuug
conference on samba as far back as... 1998. i was too shocked to even
answer the question, not least because everybody in the room clapped
at this utterly selfish, self-centered "i'm fine, i'm doing my own
thing, why should i care, nobody's paying us, so screw microsoft and
screw those stupid users for using proprietary software, they get
everything they deserve" perspective.
this very similar situation - 32-bit hardware being consigned to
landfill - is slowly and inexorably coming at us, being squeezed from
all sides not just by 32-bit hardware itself being completely useless
for actual *development* purposes (who actually still has a 32-bit
system as a main development machine?) it's being squeezed out by
advances in standards, processor speed, user expectations and much
more.
i *know* that we don't have - and can't use - 32-bit hardware for
primary development purposes. i'm writing this on a 2.5 year old
gaming laptop that was the fastest high-end resourced machine i could
buy at the time (16GB RAM, 512mb NVMe, 3.6ghz quad-core
hyperthreaded).
and y'know what? given that we're *not* being paid by these users of
32-bit hardware - in fact most of us are not being paid *at all* -
it's not as unreasonable as it first sounds.
i am *keenly aware* that we volunteer our time, and are not paid
*anything remotely* close to what we should be paid, given the
responsibility and the service that we provide to others.
it is a huge "pain in the ass" conundrum, that leaves each of us with
a moral and ethical dilemma that we each *individually* have to face.
l.
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