Re: What Linux distribution to use?
On Wed 27 Jul 2016 at 11:18:21 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> On Tue 26 Jul 2016 at 21:17:40 (-0400), Stephen Powell wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 26, 2016, at 19:05, David Wright wrote:
> > >
> > > One issue though: I have a useful laptop that has a nifty 686 (AIUI)
> > > Pentium M processor, but I have to run linux-image-3.16.0-4-586 on it
> > > because it lacks the PAE. (It has SSE/SSE2.) Do you know whether
> > > stretch will cater for non-PAE processors? Or is this no more than
> > > a kernel issue which doesn't involve package builds, as appears to
> > > be the case in jessie?
> >
> > You have a Banias-class Pentium M. All Pentium Ms support PAE. But
> > due to a microcode bug, the Banias-class Pentium Ms do not report their
> > PAE capability in the output of the CPUID instruction. A *-686-pae kernel
> > will run just fine on a Banias-class Pentium M, but you must supply the
> > "forcepae" kernel boot parameter to get it to work. I have such a machine
> > myself, so I know from experience.
> >
> > Note that stretch supports both *-686 and *-686-pae kernels. You don't
> > necessarily *need* to run a PAE kernel. Some prefer to run a non-PAE kernel
> > because it's easier on the memory requirements. But the processor must
> > support the Pentium Pro instruction set, which all Pentium Ms do.
>
> Thanks for that clear answer; I shall try that out.
Indeed, it was very informative, but going back to what Sven Joachim
said:
A 686-class processor is required for stretch
Within the meaning of the Act - what is meant by "686-class processor"?
Is this something to do with processor instructions and can it be
determined from 'cat /proc/cpuinfo'?
The meaning appears to be something that libc6 and the kernel (rather
than Intel or AMD) have agreed upon. Is there a simple way that a simple
user can determine whether a CPU is 686-class?
For example, for one machine, probably ancient but still doing a useful
job, I have
model name : Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS
That's not enough, is it? What has to done to determine its processor
class?
I'm happy enough keeping it on Jessie but, for obvious reasons, don't
want to attempt a disastrous Stretch upgrade.
uninformed
>
> So I think that all my machines are in the clear. I guess there may be
> some of the specialist tinier distributions that might cater for
> machines even older than Pentium Pro that I assume Johann Klammer has.
> I'm not sure discussions of Desktop Environments, TDE or otherwise,
> would be relevant to such old machines.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>
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