Re: Hardware requirments: Do we need Math Emulation in the i386 kernel ?
On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 07:42:05PM +1000, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> Currently the i386 kernel has support for Math Emulation built in, this makes the kernel usable with a 386 that doesnt have a 387 math co-processor, and a 486sx that doesnt have the 487dx math co-processor.
>
> Math Emulation adds 28kB to the size of the kernel, this would be a good savings if we can get it.
>
> I think the practical memory requirements for a default install will be 8MB (or possibly even 16MB).
>
> Of the 386/486sx's that are about, many of them wouldnt meet those minimum memory requirments, so they would need to be treated as a special case.
>
>
> So how do this sound for a plan.
>
> - i386 hardware requirments for the default debian-installer, 486DX or better, 8MB of memory.
>
> - For i386 hardware that doesnt meet the minimum requirments of the default installer we use a special "legacy" flavour of the installer, which is designed for absolute minimum hardware.
>
> This legacy flavour could use cramfs or squashfs and be compiled with Math Emulation support.
FWIW, I think these very limited machines should be left to
boot-floppies, I don't think we can afford to worry about getting
these working if we haven't got the mainstream already done.
--
http://Www.TruthAboutWar.org
Chris Tillman
- Linux Rox -
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