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diff --git a/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100925/000227.html b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100925/000227.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..017e167a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100925/000227.html @@ -0,0 +1,158 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> +<HTML> + <HEAD> + <TITLE> [Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? + </TITLE> + <LINK REL="Index" HREF="index.html" > + <LINK REL="made" HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20i686%20must%20be%20Pentium%20II%20%3F&In-Reply-To=%3CAANLkTikFouhCfKMWYH2fXEQzLQ9nv%3DGpsn-QzgYp41eU%40mail.gmail.com%3E"> + <META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,nofollow"> + <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> + <LINK REL="Previous" HREF="000225.html"> + <LINK REL="Next" HREF="000230.html"> + </HEAD> + <BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"> + <H1>[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?</H1> + <B>Giuseppe Ghibò</B> + <A HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20i686%20must%20be%20Pentium%20II%20%3F&In-Reply-To=%3CAANLkTikFouhCfKMWYH2fXEQzLQ9nv%3DGpsn-QzgYp41eU%40mail.gmail.com%3E" + TITLE="[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?">ghibomgx at gmail.com + </A><BR> + <I>Sat Sep 25 21:25:48 CEST 2010</I> + <P><UL> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000225.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="000230.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#227">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#227">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#227">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#227">[ author ]</a> + </LI> + </UL> + <HR> +<!--beginarticle--> +<PRE>2010/9/25 Tux99 <<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">tux99-mga at uridium.org</A>> + +><i> On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote: +</I>><i> +</I>><i> > IMHO the problem is not finding an architecture to fit the i586 or i686 +</I>><i> rpm +</I>><i> > flags, rather to find the minimum CPU and memory requirement worthwhile +</I>><i> for +</I>><i> > a decent usage. With KDE if we look at the Mandriva 2010.1, it's barely +</I>><i> > usable on a P4-3000 with 1-2GB RAM, or a AMD Barton 2500. Barely means +</I>><i> that +</I>><i> > windows and applications are pretty slow to open, switching is slow, +</I>><i> etc.; +</I>><i> > since netbook are so popular we can consider the minimum requirements as +</I>><i> > those of a typical 2010 netbook, which has ATOM 1.6Ghz processor and 1GB +</I>><i> > memory. In other words we can consider as default the presence of the SSE +</I>><i> > instruction set. ATOM has even the SSE2, which would be even better, but +</I>><i> > that would left out some AMD CPU (some older AMD, like 1.2Ghz has only +</I>><i> the +</I>><i> > 3DNow and not SSE). I would drop compiling for old ISA drivers in kernel +</I>><i> > (think to some old ISA 3com card, like 3C505, etc.). +</I>><i> > +</I>><i> +</I>><i> You are not seeing the bigger picture. Mageia is not just for desktop or +</I>><i> netbook users or modern powerful servers, there are people using +</I>><i> embedded systems that often still have i586 compatible cpus, ISA cards +</I>><i> are still very common in industrial uses, etc. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> Personally I have a VIA C3 based system that I use as home server, and +</I>><i> the C3 is only i586 compatible, not i686. +</I>><i> +</I> +Frankly IMHO such hardware is pretty unusable on a modern distro. I think +maintaining the compatibility for older legacy hardware is a duty for +OpenBSD. I tried such (i.e. Mandriva) on older hardware, and it's really +really slow, even without the graphical stuff. This is for instance a Dual +PII-450 with SCSI 10000RPM disks and 1GB RAM. At the time such hardware was +new it was the fastest machine you could assemble, and the distro you could +run was a lightning. Like if today you would assemble a Dual six-core i7 +985X with 64GB of memory and 6TB RAID disks. And PII don't have the SSE2. +Every time you upgrade the distro, performance drop to half (it's not a +matter of optimization, it's because the X11 become bigger, the kernel +fatter because more and more stuff added, more and more checks, the +applications bigger, the toolkits slower, the number of libraries higher, +...). + +And furthermore the more older system you have the fewer memory you have +available. And you can't add more memory because the chipset doesn't support +more. In these days also counts the consume of energy, so the tendency is +also to replace old hardware which consumes too much power compared to newer +hardware and virtualize the old application|system. Unless of course you +wanna experiment some solar panels... ;-) + +Often even doing the installation from scratch won't work anymore, because +the higher memory requirements. So I really want to know a REAL survey of +still old (oldest) hardware running and USING the latest distro (latest +means LATEST, not 1 or 2 years ago distro). I myself have seen even in +production (of course not on the internet so you don't need patches) systems +with MDK 7.2 with 128MB RAM and K6, but they wouldn't dare to upgrade it to +the latest. + +That's why I said to drop things that nowadays NOBODY uses anymore. Then if +someone has such hardware, it wouldn't be a problem of adding a kernel +module to the kernel list for a certain card that still is used. Of course +you can argue, that certainly a newer system would have the 64bit +instruction set support (which has even the SSE2 as lowest common +denominator), so a user there would certainly install the 64bit system and +not the 32 one. Then I say this is right. + +Regarding VIA C3, I wonder exactly which model you have, how much memory, +and which distro you are running on it. As at least 4-5 years old C3 core +Nehemiah models have support for SSE, SSE2, and even crypto hardware +optimization (that even Intel or AMD doesn't have). +I'm not saying such hardware is not common, but I wonder whether they would +install Mageia on it. It even exists slower hardware based on ARM +architecture, but there isn't any ARM port of the distro. Or is planned one? + + +><i> +</I>><i> Also dropping kernel modules for old hardware does not bring any +</I>><i> advantage (they are modules anyway so they don't get loaded on systems +</I>><i> where they aren't needed), only disadvantages to those people who need +</I>><i> them. +</I>><i> +</I> +Only advantage is that you get kernel package thinner and building time +shorter :-) + + +><i> +</I>><i> So please let's try to be as comprehensive as possible, not exclude +</I>><i> potential users by creating needless limits and restrictions. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> +</I>It's not a matter of excluding potential users, rather providing the real +requirements, not "it SHOULD work because we compiled with -march=i586...). + +Bye +Giuseppe. +-------------- next part -------------- +An HTML attachment was scrubbed... +URL: </pipermail/mageia-dev/attachments/20100925/7753fdb9/attachment-0001.html> +</PRE> + + +<!--endarticle--> + <HR> + <P><UL> + <!--threads--> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000225.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="000230.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#227">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#227">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#227">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#227">[ author ]</a> + </LI> + </UL> + +<hr> +<a href="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">More information about the Mageia-dev +mailing list</a><br> +</body></html> |