[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?

Sat Sep 25 19:52:47 CEST 2010

On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote:
+
+> IMHO the problem is not finding an architecture to fit the i586 or i686 rpm
+> flags, rather to find the minimum CPU and memory requirement worthwhile for
+> a decent usage. With KDE if we look at the Mandriva 2010.1, it's barely
+> usable on a P4-3000 with 1-2GB RAM, or a AMD Barton 2500. Barely means that
+> windows and applications are pretty slow to open, switching is slow, etc.;
+> since netbook are so popular we can consider the minimum requirements as
+> those of a typical 2010 netbook, which has ATOM 1.6Ghz processor and 1GB
+> memory. In other words we can consider as default the presence of the SSE
+> instruction set. ATOM has even the SSE2, which would be even better, but
+> that would left out some AMD CPU (some older AMD, like 1.2Ghz has only the
+> 3DNow and not SSE). I would drop compiling for old ISA drivers in kernel
+> (think to some old ISA 3com card, like 3C505, etc.).
+> 
+
+You are not seeing the bigger picture. Mageia is not just for desktop or 
+netbook users or modern powerful servers, there are people using 
+embedded systems that often still have i586 compatible cpus, ISA cards 
+are still very common in industrial uses, etc.
+
+Personally I have a VIA C3 based system that I use as home server, and 
+the C3 is only i586 compatible, not i686.
+
+Also dropping kernel modules for old hardware does not bring any 
+advantage (they are modules anyway so they don't get loaded on systems 
+where they aren't needed), only disadvantages to those people who need 
+them.
+
+So please let's try to be as comprehensive as possible, not exclude 
+potential users by creating needless limits and restrictions.
+
+