Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1998-42,: Re: Cyrix Detection -- NO SMP, please ?????

# Re: Cyrix Detection -- NO SMP, please ?????

Khimenko Victor (khim@sch57.msk.ru)
Mon, 19 Oct 1998 20:51:17 +0400 (MSD)

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19-Oct-98 12:10 you wrote:
>> > The dists should be shipping two sets of kernels. Both with PPRO opt
>> > turned on and MTRR support. This leaves out the i386. SO? What the hell
>> > are you doing Running RedHat 5.5 w/ a 2.2 kernel on a i386?!? PPro opt
>> > will work on i486+. MTRR support must be on w/ PPRO+ SMP because some MBs
>> > dont set MTRRs correctly on both CPUs..
>>
>> i386 have almost become a history. May be I'm wrong, but I don't see any
>> sense to run 2.1.xxx-2.2.x kernels on i386. The entry level is i486.

> I, for one, would be very disappointed if i386 support disappeared; it'd
> remove a lot of debugging possibilities for me, such as ESDI, etc. And why
> would we dump i386? It's not particularly hard to maintain...

No, it's hard to maintain ON BINARY level. Since Pentium-optimized kernel will
not boot on 386 :-(( And MOST computers on which new RedHat 5.5 (6.0?) with
kernel 2.2 will be used will be not 386 anyway. You could not use modern
distribution with GNOME or KDE, Netscape 4.5, etc. on 386 -- you need specially
tweaked system anyway...

> There are a lot of 386's out there, and throwing that userbase out is
> plain stupid, considering their other option is DOS...

They could still use old (or special) distributions. It's stupid IMO to make
slow distribution optimized for i386 instead of Pentium-optimized one just to
keep this userbase. Additional special version of boot floppy and few packages
for them -- may be, mainstream distribution optimized for i386 and not for
Pentium/PentiumPro -- not.

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