On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 05:06:56AM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > The options we currently have are: > > 1. drop i386 support completely: simple but painful > 2. create a crippled distro for really old systems (e.g. i386 and i486) > 3. keep everything the i386 way: slow and incompatible > 4. like 3, but provide alternatives for new systems (i686+): > needs a lot of work and ftp space.
No, 4 is not an option -- it would leave too many people in the "unnecessarily binary-incompatible" bracket. If you want to do a split at 686+ then you need *two* splits, one there and one at, say, 486+. I don't believe it's reasonable to leave people with Pentium-class machines with systems that are not binary-compatible with other distributions, and without the ability to use certain 3rd-party software (in fact I think it's debatable whether or not we could reasonably leave 486 users out in the cold in that way). It may be relatively cheap and easy for *you* to buy a two-year-old system, but I don't believe that in this case you are representative of nearly enough of our users to be a useful example. Cheers, Nick -- Nick Phillips -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
