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Date:      Fri, 25 May 2018 22:57:13 +0700
From:      Eugene Grosbein <eugen@grosbein.net>
To:        Brooks Davis <brooks@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert@cschubert.com>, Stefan Esser <se@freebsd.org>, "rgrimes@freebsd.org" <rgrimes@freebsd.org>, Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com>, Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@freebsd.org>, Sean Bruno <sbruno@freebsd.org>, "svn-src-head@freebsd.org" <svn-src-head@freebsd.org>, "svn-src-all@freebsd.org" <svn-src-all@freebsd.org>, "src-committers@freebsd.org" <src-committers@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r333388 - in head: . share/man/man4 sys/confsys/dev/nxge sys/modules sys/modules/nxge tools/kerneldoc/subsys tools/toolstools/tools/nxge usr.sbin/bsdconfig/share
Message-ID:  <5B083259.1000009@grosbein.net>
In-Reply-To: <20180523202228.GC58848@spindle.one-eyed-alien.net>
References:  <20180523193027.825583BC@spqr.komquats.com> <5B05C6AC.6010202@grosbein.net> <20180523202228.GC58848@spindle.one-eyed-alien.net>

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24.05.2018 3:22, Brooks Davis wrote:

>>> Except for old computers and old software that segfaults on 64-bit, how many people still use i386?
>>> Full disclosure: I'd like to see i386 deorbited before I retire.
>> Plese don't. I routinely use FreeBSD11/i386 for cheap VPS hosts having less than 2G memory
>> because amd64 has noticeable overhead. I even have ZFS-only i386 VPS, here is live example with 1G only:
>>
>> 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
>>
>> 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.

Why everyone's talking of hardware only? FreeBSD/i386 as virtual machine guest
with memory-intensive kernel subsystems like ZFS and/or networking tasks
using plenty of mbufs benefits significantly comparing with amd64 version.

It runs just fine, why even consider killing it?




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