https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=230888
Warner Losh <i...@freebsd.org> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CC| |i...@freebsd.org
--- Comment #14 from Warner Losh <i...@freebsd.org> ---
In the past we've kept 486 for two reasons. As a core technology, it was around
in the embedded space well into the 686 era, so there were latter-day versions
of that technology well past the classic 486s that are being sneered at a bit
in this bug (though these too are now quite old). The Soekris box was one
example. Now that it's become a burden, I think a good case could be made for
its removal.
We can make the default i686, say, and give people that are interested in
486/586 until just before the 13 branch to fix it or we remove it. That blunts
the criticism somewhat, and make people put their money where their mouths
are...
And the 'let's remove i386' is an outlier position. There's strong support for
it at least being a userland ABI that we support as a tier 1 platform, with the
kernel dropping to tier 2 for 13. Now, this may change in 14, but that's 5
years off yet :). There's always radical positions within the project... Best
not to take what any one person says seriously...
But whatever you do, I'd strongly suggest talking about it in arch@. It helps
to have a firm plan and good justification for that plan. If I may be so bold,
I'd suggest removing 486 support in the kernel; support for generating new 486
binaries and make the default i686, but allow i586 builds (unless there's a
good technical reason for not doing that). I'd justify it with the amount of
work to support the 486 has become burdensome and if we're going to change, we
might as well go to something a bit newer by default, but allow the folks that
need it to build binaries (or not, depending on the technical stuff). I suspect
that this will be close enough to what most people want as to make it through
an arch@ gauntlet and even though that might be a bit painful, it will get us
to buy in.
My own experience is that 600MHz pentium III are still decent enough, though
for a desktop with a modern web browser, you really need something quite a bit
more modern. I know people are still embedding 686 and maybe 586 boxes still
with FreeBSD, though I know of no-one that still needs the 486 stuff. This came
up 6 months ago and that was the result of my survey then...
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
_______________________________________________
freebsd-toolchain@freebsd.org mailing list
https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-toolchain
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-toolchain-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
