Re: i686 Port

[Gregory Seidman <gsslist+debian@anthropohedron.net>]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 04:06:10PM +0100, Richard Thompson wrote:
> I was wondering why debian doesn't have a port of packages optimised for
> i686, I realise they have support for i386, which obviously incudes
> everything from an intel 386 to the latest and greatest intel and amd
> processors (running in 32bit), ultimatley the i686 already has 'support'
> however I just thought it would be great if a port was available where
> the packages had been compiled specifically for i686 as I have noticed
> that when I use i686 optimised distro's such as arch, or even slackware
> there is a noticable performance difference.

This comes up on the list from time to time. The general answer is that
packages that benefit from processor-specific compilation (e.g. the kernel,
Marillat's mplayer "unofficial" packages, etc.) do exist in
processor-specific forms. The vast majority of packages, however, do not
benefit sufficiently from processor-specific compilation to justify the
complication of supporting extra versions of the packages, much less the
infrastructure to automatically select the correct package for your
processor when using apt.

> Richard Thompson
--Greg