At 19:55 26/04/2003 +1000, you wrote:
On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 09:41:14AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote: > 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? )
- Cache ( very much needed, i mught add ) - Pipeline "attempt" IIRC - Mandatory 32bits Bus/MemoryIMHO, since we have concluded there are almost NO "true i386" around ( not even for routers ), the first *easy* split would be to drop i386 in favour of i486 for Sarge+ ( does anybody really think i386 will survive another year/year-and-a-half ?? ). This will solve the ABI problem in one, easy, shot This means binary-i386 in Debian will really mean "binary-i486" -- I don't see any problems here.
We might then try to judge how much of a benefit we can get by moving on to i586+ for the vast majority of the archive ( other distributions support i586+ *only*, so it can't be that bad, can it? ). Retiring i586 right now looks a bit "bold" to be done right now.
I do own a (retired now) 486, with 16MB -- it was really a pain when i last used it[ 2years ago], with SuSE 6.2 [released 1998]. These machines are only good for routers now, which means we could create a subarch, with just the kernel, basic libs, iptables, ssh, security tools and things like that (maybe Postfix/exim/sendmail ? ) -- no need for Apache, nor MySQL/PostgreSQL ( !!! ), .... especially no need for XFree, Gnome, KDE et al -- and everything would be fine. As a side effect, we would get the basic installation size down to about 50-65MB ( just guessing! ): this can only be an improvement.
The smaller machines me or any of my friends/relatives/acquaintances are using are P90 w/32MB, loaded with say, 120GB IDE HDD -- used as "servers" connected to cable/ADSL lines, running mldonkey, ftp servers,.... <grin> -- All running "Woody" :D This means we shouldn't leave that *whole lot* of users without frequent security updates for Apache, Postfix/exim, proftpd, ...
Regards,
J.L.