Hi all, I feel this whole discussion is somehow going into the wrong direction. What does it matter now whether we drop support for i386 and i486 (and possibly more), or just i386? Sooner or later we'll have the same problem (of changing the arch support being so difficult) again, if not with ix86 architectures, then with some other architecture.
If you ask me, the proper long-term solution would be to make the arch names sub-arch independent (i.e. "ix86" or "ia32" instead of "i386"), and then make the archs have versions (i.e. "ix86 3" = "i386", "ix86 5" = "i586") and -- if this can be viably done somehow -- features (i.e. "ix86 5 +mmx" = P MMX, "ix86 6 +sse" = P III). This would ease adding and dropping (and specifying required) arch support immensely in the future. (A different syntax like "ix86-5-mmx" might be better, consider this a matter of discussion.) I know it isn't simple to make these changes in Debian. What do you think? Julian.
