On Mar 31, 2013, at 11:48 PM, Kimmo Paasiala wrote: > I think the only ones who are going to object are the users of embedded > hardware. Some of them are still using CPUs that are only i586 equivalent. > > Personally I support the notion. > > -Kimmo > > > On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Eitan Adler <li...@eitanadler.com> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I am writing this email to discuss the i386 architecture in FreeBSD. >> >> Computers are getting faster, but also more memory intensive. I >> can not find a laptop with less than 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Modern >> browsers, such as Firefox, require a 64bit architecture and 8GB of >> RAM. A 32 bit platform is not enough now a days on systems with >> more than 4 GB of RAM. A 32 bit core now is like 640K of RAM in >> the 1990s. Even in the embedded world ARM is going 64 bit with >> ARMv8.
Actually, that's not true. ARM is producing a 64-bit thing, but (a) it hasn't been released yet and (b) the vast majority of all embedded arm boards are 32-bits. >> Secondly, the i386 port is unmaintained. Very few developers run >> it, so it doesn't get the testing it deserves. Almost every user >> post or bug report I see from a x86 compatible processor is running >> amd64. When was the last time you booted i386 outside a virtual >> machine? Often times the build works for amd64 but fails for i386. I've not seen this to be the case, and I still run i386 in several virtual machines as well as on my firewall. Running in a virtual environment isn't good support for dropping i386, frankly. I've had the build be broken for me about equal times for both. >> Finally, others are dropping support for i386. Windows Server 2008 >> is 64 bit only, OSX Mountain Lion (10.8) is 64-bit only. Users >> and downstream vendors no longer care about preserving ancient >> hardware. >> >> I hope this email is enough to convince you that on this date we >> should drop support for the i386 architecture for 10.0 to tier 2 >> and replace it with the ARM architecture as Tier 1. arm can be Tier 1 without dropping i386 as Tier 1. Are there specific bugs in i386 that haven't gone fixed for a long time? Basically, I see no benefit to this move. At least none has been articulated. Warner _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
