Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2013 03:11:56 +0100 From: Joe Holden <lists@rewt.org.uk> To: Adrian Chadd <adrian@freebsd.org> Cc: Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, FreeBSD Hackers <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: considering i386 as a tier 1 architecture Message-ID: <515A3E6C.7030404@rewt.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <CAJ-VmokLrWkOfmx=W0NmJctPxCXR-7qs5DJgVH9UGu6AgHWsMQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAF6rxgnYOwAPnpykTAN-Eu=oeee_uBMt1ud8U4RpyKLO5S257Q@mail.gmail.com> <CAJ-VmokLrWkOfmx=W0NmJctPxCXR-7qs5DJgVH9UGu6AgHWsMQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Adrian Chadd wrote: > Why stop there? > > Noone runs FreeBSD on real hardware anymore. Except, say netflix. > > Let's just drop actual native hardware support and instead support > only the bare minimum needed to boot inside vmware, virtualbox and > xen. > > Anyone needing real hardware support can install NetBSD and xen. > The irony being that NetBSD runs on really obscure hardware but nothing that anybody anywhere uses? ;) > > Adrian > > On 31 March 2013 21:48, Eitan Adler <lists@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. >> >> 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. >> >> 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. >> >> -- >> Eitan Adler
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