Michal Kubecek composed on 2015-05-06 20:35 (UTC+0200):
I'm going to say something that will be very unpopular but I feel it really needs to be said. Should we really care so much about i586? I don't have any 32-bit system since something like 2008, I definitely haven't seen any 32-bit x86 CPU in usual e-shops for at least 5 years and I'm not sure I would be able to buy one today if I tried hard.
Try to answer honestly: how much testing and QA did current (13.2 or Tumbleweed) openSUSE kernel get on i586?
I have many test installations. Most by far are 32 bit regardless of CPU type. At least 3 do not support SSE2.
How much chance of getting attention to an i586-specific bug would you get? Do you really believe that given the circumstances and popularity of i586 among kernel developers, the state of i586 kernel would be significantly worse if we based openSUSE kernel on SLE (compared to current state)? I don't think so - and even if I did, I don't believe it would outweigh the difference on x86_64.
I find 64 bit chronically annoying, and so use it on few machines even capable of using it. Most of mine are not. The one I most use, up 24/7 and I write this with is on i586 even though it's an E7600 with 4G RAM and using RAID. 1-most of my machines have less than 4G RAM, and many don't support more than 1GB, which is ample for most users for email, shopping, banking, youtube, etc. 2-64 bit installations take more disk space, which in turn means updates require more time and bandwidth for the duplicative required -32bit packages 3-last I checked specifically, zypper still offered no option to not clutter search results with i586 packages on 64 bit installations 4-whatever speed advantage 64 bit may have over 32 bit has never become apparent to me 5-need for >4G RAM has yet to manifest here 6-killing off 32 bit means inducing otherwise premature migration of working machines into landfills, econeg. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org