Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Saturday 19 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> The i386 architecture was the first in Linux and in Debian, but we have
> long since dropped support for the original i386-compatible processors
> and now require a minimum of a 486-class processor.
>
> I think it is time to increase the minimum requirement to 586-class, if
> not for wheezy then immediately after. (Later it should be increased
> further, and eventually i386 should be reduced to a partial architecture
> that may be installed on amd64 systems.) This would allow the use of
> optimisations and new instructions throughout userland that improve
> performance for the vast majority of users.
>
> The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are:
> 1. All x86 processors with names including '486'
> 2. AMD Am5x86
> 3. Cyrix/IBM/ST 5x86, 6x86 and MediaGX
> 4. UMC U5D and U5S
> 5. AMD/NSC Geode GX1, Geode SC1100, Elan SC4xx and SC5xx
I am still running a bunch of systems with SC1100 processors on them.
They are (and always have been) running off the shelf Debian kernels
and I would much rather keep it that way.
David
> Also possibly:
> 6. DM&P/SiS Vortex86 and Vortex86SX. These supposedly have all
> 586-class features except an FPU, and we could probably keep FPU
> emulation for them.
>
> So far as I know, all processors in groups 1-5 have been out of
> production for several years. Soekris still advertises boards using the
> Geode SC1100 and Elan SC520, but they seem quite uncompetitive with
> ARM-based systems and at least the SC1100-based products are being
> EOL'd.
>
> Starting from version 2.6.24 or earlier (early 2008), Debian '486'
> kernel packages had a bug that caused them to crash on boot on 486-class
> processors, but this was not reported until early 2009 (#511703),
> suggesting that there were few users with such systems. Debian 7.0
> 'wheezy' should be released in late 2012 or early 2013 and in the
> intervening 4 years the numbers of running systems with such a processor
> will have declined still further.
>
> Ben.
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