On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 8:51 AM, Andrew Gallatin <galla...@cs.duke.edu> wrote: > On 05/23/18 20:09, Pedro Giffuni wrote: >> >> FWIW; >> >> On 23/05/2018 17:18, Cy Schubert wrote: >>> >>> In message <20180523202228.gc58...@spindle.one-eyed-alien.net>, Brooks >>> Davis wr >>> ites: >>>> >>>> >>>> --QRj9sO5tAVLaXnSD >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >>>> Content-Disposition: inline >>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >>>> >>>> On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 02:53:16AM +0700, Eugene Grosbein wrote: >>>>> >>>>> 24.05.2018 2:30, Cy Schubert wrote: >>>>> =20 >>>>>> >>>>>> Except for old computers and old software that segfaults on 64-bit, >>>>>> how= >>>> >>>> many people still use i386? >>>>>> >>>>>> =20 >>>>>> Full disclosure: I'd like to see i386 deorbited before I retire. >>>>> >>>>> =20 >>>>> Plese don't. I routinely use FreeBSD11/i386 for cheap VPS hosts having >>>>> le= >>>> >>>> ss than 2G memory >>>>> >>>>> because amd64 has noticeable overhead. I even have ZFS-only i386 VPS, >>>>> her= >>>> >>>> e is live example with 1G only: >>>>> >>>>> =20 >>>>> Mem: 10M Active, 69M Inact, 230M Wired, 685M Free >>>>> ARC: 75M Total, 1953K MFU, 31M MRU, 172K Anon, 592K Header, 42M Other >>>>> 3500K Compressed, 29M Uncompressed, 8.61:1 Ratio >>>>> Swap: 1024M Total, 1024M Free >>>>> =20 >>>>> The VPS has only 20G of disk space and ZFS compression gives >>>>> compressratio 2.22x for ports, 2.51x for src, 2.29x for obj >>>>> and 1.95x for installed i386 system plus other software and data. >>>> >>>> I think we're quite a ways from being ready to axe i386. >>>> >>>> For VPS applications, we should probably get x32 support in place which >>>> should give us the best of both worlds. >>>> >>>> That said, we either need to rev the i386 ABI to use a 64-bit time_t or >>>> kill it in the not to distant future or we risk embedded systems failing >>>> in place in 2038. If we assume a 15 year life for most equipment to >>>> fail electrically or mechanically that says FreeBSD 13 shouldn't support >>>> the current i386 ABI. >>> >>> Rereading this, I'm confused. FreeBSD 13? 2023? Either works for me, >>> though 2023 is more reasonable and gives people more than enough time >>> to migrate. >>> >>> >> IMHO, we shouldn't at all plan to deorbit i386: it is a platform that is >> very easy to test on Jenkins/bhyve. If we want to keep FreeBSD multiplatform >> it is way easier to test and find bugs on i386 than on other 32 bit >> platforms. It is fully functional and much more than historic value. >> >> X32 sadly didn't catch on linux on AFAICT, although I wouldn't object to >> it appearing on FreeBSD. >> >> Pedro > > On the other hand, supporting all these architectures makes it rather > challenging to make changes to the kernel & feel like you've tested > them sufficiently. Even build testing a header file change can take > the better part of a day with make universe. I'm quite jealous of > Dragonfly's amd64 only approach for this reason. > > I realize this may be seen as ironic, as I'm one of the people that > dragged FreeBSD into the multiplatform world with the FreeBSD/alpha > port 20 years ago. On the other hand, I was happy to retire > FreeBSD/alpha when the Alpha stopped being commercially viable. > I always viewed NetBSD as the proper place for "historical" platforms > to run BSD. I wish we could retire some of the minor/historical > platforms that we have now. >
Additional platforms don't come without a cost. When I was doing i386-xen and sun4v alc would routinely break the port and I was _fine_ with that. He shouldn't be slowing down for something marginal. When it was clear to me that sun4v was never going to get much uptake I asked that it be removed. i386 is definitely on the wane, but so long as it's used by more than a handful of people it will be supported. All you need to know about sparc64 vitality is that HEAD didn't boot for 3 months until last week. -M _______________________________________________ svn-src-head@freebsd.org mailing list https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/svn-src-head To unsubscribe, send any mail to "svn-src-head-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
