Re: Defaulting to i686 for the Debian i386 architecture

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

[Please CC me; not subscribed to -devel.]

Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Mon, 2015-09-28 at 15:34 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > > We propose to drop support for i386 processors older than 686-class in
> > > the current release cycle.  This would include folding libc6-i686 into
> > > libc6, changing the default target for gcc, and changing the 586 kernel
> > > flavour to 686 (non-PAE).
> > > 
> > > Since the 686-class, introduced with the Pentium Pro, is now almost 20
> > > years old, we believe there are few Debian systems still running that
> > > have 586-class or hybrid processors.  The only such processors
> > > apparently still available for sale are the DM&P Vortex86 family, Intel
> > > Quark and Xeon Phi, of which we currently only support the Vortex86.
> > 
> > Debian i386 currently works just fine on Quark processors;
> [...]
> 
> So far as I know, all current Quark processors have errata that make
> them unstable, not to mention totally insecure, when running ordinary
> i386 binaries.

News to me.  Link please?  Because I don't know what they'd run if *not*
ordinary x86 binaries, and everyone I know targeting them builds
ordinary x86 binaries. :)

- Josh Triplett