On 20/11/2011 20:36, Ben Hutchings wrote:
If that is so, we should instead think forward to 686-class with CMOV as a minimum for wheezy + 1. Use of CMOV instructions is an important optimisation and they *are* generated directly by compilers.
While i might agree with the exclusion of 486 cpu classes (somewhere i have a Winchip C6 200 MHz but i consider it unusable except for very limited tasks), i think that excluding 586 could be too aggressive. AMD K6-2 processors doesn't have CMOV, because when i try to use various rescue CD on some of these machine, they don't boot with a messages informing of the missing instruction. These processors are about 15 years old but are still useful and usable today and maybe still for Wheezy+1. I think that would be a pity if Debian will not provide anymore a kernel for this old cpus.
Cesare.