Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk writes: The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are: 1. All x86 processors with names including '486' I'm still running the machine below, and it would be irritating to have to replace it. ... vendor_id : CentaurHauls cpu family: 6 model : 7 model name: VIA Samuel 2 AFAICT, the above would be considered a 586-class CPU... so no prob! -Miles -- A zen-buddhist walked into a pizza shop and said, Make me one with everything. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/buor50e1eo5@dhlpc061.dev.necel.com
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Hello, 2011/11/23 Matthias Klose d...@debian.org: On 11/19/2011 11:42 PM, Ben Hutchings wrote: (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. could you give numbers what kind of improvements you would expect? The biggest burden for i386 is the register pressure, which you won't fix with targeting a newer processor. The better approach would be a new port, the x32 architecture; I don't know if anybody did look into building a distribution for this architecture yet. The next thing could be to default to sse2 math instead of x87 (didn't look if this is already the default for x32). FWIW, Yocto has attempted to build an image for x32: https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/X32_abi Yes, x32 defaults to SSE and improvements expected 7-10% on integer math over ia32 (5-8% over intel64) and 5-11% on fp math over ia32. Figures from http://linuxplumbersconf.org/2011/ocw/system/presentations/531/original/x32-LPC-2011-0906.pptx Cheers, -- Héctor Orón -.. . -... .. .- -. -.. . ...- . .-.. --- .--. . .-. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caodfwegyeux2ybij1i5orxfs2fme5mrw-eoesv2l_s2y2jh...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Matthias Klose d...@debian.org writes: On 11/19/2011 11:42 PM, 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. note that squeeze is built this way, and single packages like openjdk only build for 586. (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. could you give numbers what kind of improvements you would expect? The biggest burden for i386 is the register pressure, which you won't fix with targeting a newer processor. The better approach would be a new port, the x32 architecture; I don't know if anybody did look into building a distribution for this architecture yet. The next thing could be to default to sse2 math instead of x87 (didn't look if this is already the default for x32). Matthias Where the relevant patches added to binutils and gcc for this? MfG Goswin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87obw3w2uc.fsf@frosties.localnet
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
[Goswin von Brederlow] Where the relevant patches added to binutils and gcc for this? See for yourself: http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/ -- Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2023122412.gf2...@p12n.org
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Wed, 2011-11-23 at 00:44 +0100, Matthias Klose wrote: On 11/19/2011 11:42 PM, 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. note that squeeze is built this way, and single packages like openjdk only build for 586. So I was told. I must have missed the discussion of this prior to the change. Somehow it seems to be missing from the release notes too. (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. could you give numbers what kind of improvements you would expect? [...] That I don't know. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Teamwork is essential - it allows you to blame someone else. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 07:20:11PM +, 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. I think this lacks perspective. It is far too late to try to improve i386 performance. Popularity-contest shows that i386 will not be the dominant architecture before the time Wheezy is released. So we can expect that in Wheezy time, i386 will be mostly a legacy platform used by older hardware and the vast majority of i386 users will be people stuck with an older computer, more interested by the continued support for their platform than by performance. Users seeking performance will use amd64, which offer more registers and and a larger address space. If we want to make a difference with performance, we should target the latest amd64 hardware, not i386. Cheers, -- Bill. ballo...@debian.org Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2023223142.GC23122@yellowpig
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 04:47:20PM +, Ian Jackson wrote: Ben Hutchings writes (Increasing minimum 'i386' processor): The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are: 1. All x86 processors with names including '486' I'm still running the machine below, and it would be irritating to have to replace it. vendor_id : CentaurHauls model name: VIA Samuel 2 I don't see any 486 in this name. Bastian -- There's a way out of any cage. -- Captain Christopher Pike, The Menagerie (The Cage), stardate unknown. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2022172828.ga31...@wavehammer.waldi.eu.org
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Ben Hutchings writes (Increasing minimum 'i386' processor): The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are: 1. All x86 processors with names including '486' I'm still running the machine below, and it would be irritating to have to replace it. Perhaps a better approach would be to suggest that people with shiny new hardware should be running amd64 kernels with i386 userland, or even amd64 (with multiarch i386 for proprietary crap that isn't available for amd64) ? Ian. processor : 0 vendor_id : CentaurHauls cpu family : 6 model : 7 model name : VIA Samuel 2 stepping: 3 cpu MHz : 533.401 cache size : 64 KB fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow bogomips: 1066.80 clflush size: 32 cache_alignment : 32 address sizes : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual power management: -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20171.53784.119523.574...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
OoO Lors de la soirée naissante du mardi 22 novembre 2011, vers 18:28, Bastian Blank wa...@debian.org disait : The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are: 1. All x86 processors with names including '486' I'm still running the machine below, and it would be irritating to have to replace it. vendor_id: CentaurHauls model name : VIA Samuel 2 I don't see any 486 in this name. This processor does not run with a 686 kernel and needs a 486 kernel. If I remember correctly, it is because the lack of CMOV instruction. Therefore, no problem with 586. -- Vincent Bernat ☯ http://vincent.bernat.im Indent to show the logical structure of a program. - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan Plauger) pgpjR0ImIUXpH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 04:47:20PM +, Ian Jackson wrote: Ben Hutchings writes (Increasing minimum 'i386' processor): The 486-class processors that would no longer be supported are: 1. All x86 processors with names including '486' I'm still running the machine below, and it would be irritating to have to replace it. As Bastian says, this does not look like a 486. The flags include tsc msr cx8. Perhaps a better approach would be to suggest that people with shiny new hardware should be running amd64 kernels with i386 userland, or even amd64 (with multiarch i386 for proprietary crap that isn't available for amd64) ? [...] I believe Debian should now treat amd64 as the default architecture for PCs. The i386 installer does provide it as an option in expert mode (though it's not on CD 1) but I'm not sure we're quite at the point where it should be automatically selected. In any case this is irrelevant to the question of optimising userland. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. - Albert Camus -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2022183646.gr3...@decadent.org.uk
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On 11/19/2011 11:42 PM, 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. note that squeeze is built this way, and single packages like openjdk only build for 586. (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. could you give numbers what kind of improvements you would expect? The biggest burden for i386 is the register pressure, which you won't fix with targeting a newer processor. The better approach would be a new port, the x32 architecture; I don't know if anybody did look into building a distribution for this architecture yet. The next thing could be to default to sse2 math instead of x87 (didn't look if this is already the default for x32). Matthias -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ecc33cd.7040...@debian.org
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On 11/20/2011 01:08 AM, Guillem Jover wrote: Hi! On Sat, 2011-11-19 at 22:42:11 +, 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. It seems gcc has been targetting i586 instruction set by default since gcc 4.4.0-1~exp1, although the triplet was not changed to match. On the discussion regarding multiarch tuples I proposed we should switch the triplet back to i386-linux-gnu to avoid this kind of confusion, fix the internal inconsistency and the one with other architectures (which do not track the base instruction set in the triplet) and so that we can use them directly as the multiarch tuples. For more details please see: http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00061.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00039.html No, that's wrong. i386-linux-gnu has a different ABI for at least some libraries (libstdc++) than i486-linux-gnu. Unfortunately the proposal to use ix86-linux-gnu for the i386 multiarch triplet didn't find a consensus. Matthias -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ecc34e9.6090...@debian.org
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
How does one do a simple test to see if one is on the death list? # grep -c 86 /proc/cpuinfo 0 # lshw | grep -c 86 0 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87pqgl5ok1@jidanni.org
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. DMP/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. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20201010.21696.david.goodeno...@btconnect.com
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Guillem Jover guil...@debian.org writes: Hi! On Sat, 2011-11-19 at 22:42:11 +, 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. It seems gcc has been targetting i586 instruction set by default since gcc 4.4.0-1~exp1, although the triplet was not changed to match. On the discussion regarding multiarch tuples I proposed we should switch the triplet back to i386-linux-gnu to avoid this kind of confusion, fix the internal inconsistency and the one with other architectures (which do not track the base instruction set in the triplet) and so that we can use them directly as the multiarch tuples. For more details please see: http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00061.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00039.html regards, guillem While I agree that the triplet should be unique for all the reasons stated in the two mails I have to disagree with your conclusion to change the gcc triplet to i386-linux-gnu. A gcc compiling for i486-linux-gnu, i585-linux-gnu or even i686-linux-gnu is not compiling for the i386-linux-gnu ABI. You would be making the same mistake that arm does on i*86 too, making the triplet not unique. You could have a normal gcc and a i386-linux-gnu-gcc on your system. MfG Goswin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87y5vbf2f8.fsf@frosties.localnet
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Nov 19, Ben Hutchings b...@decadent.org.uk wrote: I think it is time to increase the minimum requirement to 586-class, if not for wheezy then immediately after. I agree, it's time to weight the costs and benefits of supporting obsolete hardware at the expense of most users. (Later it should be increased further, and eventually i386 should be reduced to a partial architecture that may be installed on amd64 systems.) Yes, but how much later? :-) -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 10:10 +, David Goodenough wrote: 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. [...] Then keep them running. 'squeeze' should continue to receive security updates until late 2013. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Usenet is essentially a HUGE group of people passing notes in class. - Rachel Kadel, `A Quick Guide to Newsgroup Etiquette' signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Sunday 20 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 10:10 +, David Goodenough wrote: 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. [...] Then keep them running. 'squeeze' should continue to receive security updates until late 2013. Ben. Actually I am currently in the process of upgrading them because the wireless cards they had are no longer available and I am having to replace them with new ath5k compatible ones. I also need to work them in frequencies where I need DFS support, and that is only just being added to the driver. So I have to upgrade them. And this could/will happen again in the future. David -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20201943.23753.david.goodeno...@btconnect.com
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 19:43 +, David Goodenough wrote: On Sunday 20 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 10:10 +, David Goodenough wrote: 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. [...] Then keep them running. 'squeeze' should continue to receive security updates until late 2013. Ben. Actually I am currently in the process of upgrading them because the wireless cards they had are no longer available and I am having to replace them with new ath5k compatible ones. I also need to work them in frequencies where I need DFS support, and that is only just being added to the driver. So I have to upgrade them. And this could/will happen again in the future. Whatever is decided, you should have some years' warning that you either need to upgrade the hardware or hire someone to continue support (though I doubt it'll be worth it). Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Usenet is essentially a HUGE group of people passing notes in class. - Rachel Kadel, `A Quick Guide to Newsgroup Etiquette' signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Sunday 20 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 19:43 +, David Goodenough wrote: On Sunday 20 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: On Sun, 2011-11-20 at 10:10 +, David Goodenough wrote: 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. [...] Then keep them running. 'squeeze' should continue to receive security updates until late 2013. Ben. Actually I am currently in the process of upgrading them because the wireless cards they had are no longer available and I am having to replace them with new ath5k compatible ones. I also need to work them in frequencies where I need DFS support, and that is only just being added to the driver. So I have to upgrade them. And this could/will happen again in the future. Whatever is decided, you should have some years' warning that you either need to upgrade the hardware or hire someone to continue support (though I doubt it'll be worth it). Ben. Actually I do not generally find out that I can not get more of a part until I come to order it. I then have to look for new hardware and make sure that it is supported. I am having to rebuild these boxes with sid packages as those are the only ones with the relevant support. While I can build my own debs (and have done so in the past) if I can avoid it I would much rather do so as it is one less thing to do. David -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20202240.14331.david.goodeno...@btconnect.com
Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
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 Also possibly: 6. DMP/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. -- Ben Hutchings The world is coming to an end. Please log off. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
Hi! On Sat, 2011-11-19 at 22:42:11 +, 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. It seems gcc has been targetting i586 instruction set by default since gcc 4.4.0-1~exp1, although the triplet was not changed to match. On the discussion regarding multiarch tuples I proposed we should switch the triplet back to i386-linux-gnu to avoid this kind of confusion, fix the internal inconsistency and the one with other architectures (which do not track the base instruction set in the triplet) and so that we can use them directly as the multiarch tuples. For more details please see: http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00061.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2011/02/msg00039.html regards, guillem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/202810.ga20...@gaara.hadrons.org
Re: Increasing minimum 'i386' processor
On Sat, 19 Nov 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: Also possibly: 6. DMP/SiS Vortex86 and Vortex86SX. These supposedly have all 586-class features except an FPU, and we could probably keep FPU emulation for them. FWIW, I do run Debian on such systems albeit with a custom kernel. Given those CPU tend to be used in an embedded context I guess it's ok if the official kernel does not support them. But it would be nice if Debian's userspace could be kept compatible. Not sure what this requires though... Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer Pre-order a copy of the Debian Administrator's Handbook and help liberate it: http://debian-handbook.info/go/ulule-rh/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2020074047.gi3...@rivendell.home.ouaza.com
