On Wednesday 17 June 2009 05:00:38 pm Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 01:52:26PM -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> - Build all packages for i686 (this requires cmov)
This cuts out AMD Geode ...
and for what ...
> P4 2.4Ghz Athlon 3400+ Core2Duo E6850 Atom N270
> march=i686/ -1.1% +2.0% +0.9% +0.6%
> mtune=generic
> march=i586/ +0.3% -0.3% -0.2% +1.3%
> mtune=atom
> march=i686/ -1.5% +1.2% +0.5% +1.7%
> mtune=atom
This just doesn't look worthwhile at all.
My proposal is that we actually start to 'downgrade' x86, start
compiling for baseline i386, and try to support people running Fedora
on really old hardware, through projects like the Minimal Platform
feature.
Sounds like a perfect target as a secondary arch. there is no reason why
we
cant support the older hardware as a community based effort of those interested
in it. the primary arches are never going to satisfy everyone's itch but we
leave the door open to do it through initiatives like secondary arches. The
hardest part and the thing thats slowed things down so far is bootstrapping a
new arch. its much much simpler for a x86 based arch as there is a baseline
already bootstrapped.
Dennis