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diff --git a/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100926/000248.html b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100926/000248.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000..5a624972d --- /dev/null +++ b/zarb-ml/mageia-dev/20100926/000248.html @@ -0,0 +1,186 @@ +<!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=%3CAANLkTinAc-zzU9Nafrm-mzZ0DVk1%3DJ%3DA%3DM_mgvSxt2%3DL%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="000237.html"> + <LINK REL="Next" HREF="000249.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=%3CAANLkTinAc-zzU9Nafrm-mzZ0DVk1%3DJ%3DA%3DM_mgvSxt2%3DL%40mail.gmail.com%3E" + TITLE="[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?">ghibomgx at gmail.com + </A><BR> + <I>Sun Sep 26 10:11:40 CEST 2010</I> + <P><UL> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000237.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="000249.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#248">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#248">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#248">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#248">[ author ]</a> + </LI> + </UL> + <HR> +<!--beginarticle--> +<PRE>2010/9/26 Tux99 <<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">tux99-mga at uridium.org</A>> + +On Sun, 26 Sep 2010, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote: +><i> +</I>><i> > Centos4 IS NOT a modern distro. It is a LTS started in 2005 and so it +</I>><i> > maintains 2005's original skeleton of kernel, gcc, glibc and X. That's +</I>><i> FIVE +</I>><i> > years old. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> I'm quite sure Centos5/RHEL5 would install and run fine on it too, +</I>><i> Debian would almost certainly too, the point is when you don't +</I>><i> install/use a GUI, Linux still can run fine on very old low end +</I>><i> hardware. +</I>><i> +</I> +kernel 2.6.18 is a lot different than 2.6.31/33. As I said I invite to RUN +the installation/installer from scratch (there is the dual-arch installer on +a CD) of 2010.1 or cooker in such hardware. And if successful, report the +memory usage without any service started apart the login ttys. We are not +using the installation tools of CentOS or Debian. NetBSD would have probably +even the tiny one since AIM of being still compatible to m68k hardware. + + +><i> +</I>><i> +</I>><i> > As example MDV 2007.1, which is 3 years old, was still very +</I>><i> > usable and responsive on my P4/ATI (maybe not as much as stable with 3D +</I>><i> > acceleration), but 2010.0 ISN'T. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> Again, you are missing the point, you are talking about desktop/GUI use! +</I>><i> Computers get used for a lot of other purposes, not just desktop/GUI use! +</I>><i> +</I>><i> +</I> + +><i> +</I>><i> > That's why I in some way asked a survey of oldest hardware based +</I>><i> > on own experiences. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> Well, my oldest hardware that I still have working is a dual cpu +</I>><i> Pentium 233MMX (the original i586) with 384MB RAM (currently has 2008.1 +</I>><i> +</I> +in i586 we are not even using MMX. As I said 2008.1 is not 2010.1 but 4 +generation distro behind. Since it's not LTS, you might try to upgrade to +2010.1. + + +><i> on it) and a VIA C3 (samuel2 core, i586 since it lacks CMOV) box with +</I>><i> 512MB RAM which has mdv 2010.1 installed on it and works fine for it's +</I>><i> purpose too (headless home server running 24/7 and only uses 10Watts). +</I>><i> +</I> +what is the output of "cpuinfo" there? + + +><i> +</I>><i> > Very interesting, but will such "industrial use" will be target for +</I>><i> Mageia +</I>><i> > (BTW, certainly socket 775 CPU will support SSE and SSE2...)? If they +</I>><i> have +</I>><i> > an ISA slot, I guess is for maintaning the compatibility with some old +</I>><i> fancy +</I>><i> > (and maybe custom) card, certainly not for an ISA ethernet card that can +</I>><i> be +</I>><i> > easily replaced with a cheap PCI one or the one on board. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> That was just one example, there are many other situations were you +</I>><i> still find ISA hardware, especially in developing countries. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> +</I>><i> > Not exactly. I'm not talking in just using -march=<something> but in also +</I>><i> > pushing -mfpmath=sse -msse (and maybe -msse2) , which should be much more +</I>><i> > than JUST 1-2% (1-2% is usually the benchmark tolerance)... +</I>><i> +</I>><i> AFAIK SSE will only help with media apps (mplayer, etc) and they do +</I>><i> autodedect already anyway so in practice nothing is gained. +</I>><i> +</I> +-mfpmath=sse would replace the x87 with sse. Of course for any CPU not +having the SSE would result in a segfault or illegal instruction report +rather than a drop of performance as in case of changing the optimization +but maintaining the backward compatibility. + + +><i> +</I>><i> +</I>><i> > being realistic I think it's a lot of work and there aren't the +</I>><i> resources, +</I>><i> > so a choice of the default flags should be done. +</I>><i> +</I>><i> Agreed that would be too much work for very little benefit, the default +</I>><i> flags of Mandriva are just fine since they still work on i586. +</I>><i> +</I> +If you are able to break the Page's law you are welcome. :-) +[<A HREF="http://www.appscout.com/2009/05/moores_law_meet_larry_pages_la.php">http://www.appscout.com/2009/05/moores_law_meet_larry_pages_la.php</A>] + + +><i> +</I>><i> We could have some selected packages also as i686 (like MIB does and +</I>><i> like the kernel already is), like for example all the media players, but +</I>><i> making the whole distro i686 would break too many uses of it. +</I>><i> +</I> +as I said you are forgetting two of the most important like glibc and +kernel. As I said it's not that difficult to provide such packages (even +optimized for VIA C3 and C7) but require a little bit more than rebuilding +with specifying --target=c3,c7,xxx in rpm building. + +I also think that sometimes application due to poor cache (including ATOM) +would run faster when compiled with -Os instead of -O2...; we could +introduce it for a common .i386.rpm package. + +Bye +Giuseppe. + +In a challenge of better supporting legacy hardware, why not adding Mageia +super-Legacy no-desktop section? where we are doing exactly the opposite of +supporting newer hardware. E.g.: + +- remove i18n support, only LANG=C +- optimize for tiny cache +- reduce the # of fonts installed +- no themes +- reduce # of things in /etc/profile.d +- no extra audio daemon support (pulse, etc) or even no audio support +-------------- next part -------------- +An HTML attachment was scrubbed... +URL: </pipermail/mageia-dev/attachments/20100926/47ebffc2/attachment.html> +</PRE> + + +<!--endarticle--> + <HR> + <P><UL> + <!--threads--> + <LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000237.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI>Next message: <A HREF="000249.html">[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ? +</A></li> + <LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> + <a href="date.html#248">[ date ]</a> + <a href="thread.html#248">[ thread ]</a> + <a href="subject.html#248">[ subject ]</a> + <a href="author.html#248">[ 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> |