From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 1 04:48:40 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 89E63199 for ; Mon, 1 Apr 2013 04:48:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@eitanadler.com) Received: from mail-pb0-f47.google.com (mail-pb0-f47.google.com [209.85.160.47]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67D7577C for ; Mon, 1 Apr 2013 04:48:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pb0-f47.google.com with SMTP id rp2so1009556pbb.20 for ; Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:48:39 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=eitanadler.com; s=0xdeadbeef; h=x-received:mime-version:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type; bh=4GZ0Fv5h3a8uIyRxgdbuv3D78vr8q1okbTsBsO8Q9y0=; b=Ixio29gE+rx6kRSuLIs4dwBWIiRDEPwuvp2hzG85XKG2PO3d8SII+jrvBswCJSy66c xdTzFTL7XTHAZyrGhS0wa63Apx5CUQKKhAf+AfA1hN9Mnj3QOgkjPAwseyjPTgod7RrO QKmX+TS1TnjtMyJbnJHCBEBPkE62UsIkRZA9o= X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com; s=20120113; h=x-received:mime-version:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type:x-gm-message-state; bh=4GZ0Fv5h3a8uIyRxgdbuv3D78vr8q1okbTsBsO8Q9y0=; b=bjmtB+z0obICR+sWTt62apNhAvB75Dkm4stNzQC2GgSaN6QfVHA8Z82AM6rmGnYmUm LP/7j0z9OGlnH/UOwSxNzr2Sj4jL8bENWcX+t+U5kTNXTJ99EXa34RNMEAdTk7R6vDsA 7bCLU7wHEn+J72WjZ2Mbz7W/sYvK+QzSr7ziqrjzkDjMRIT6Qu76QuUYyw93SSLVG1Gk bS+r12yrBkEGdllUq3d4VxjoqdZBals2HIKdt9G7KQbuhyP1R8XJGZfl0BovYdjyi1g0 v69pP/FqmJEzxUL+UqlQiX2XgvFnyV6cdhaDLMRhTJfV5HvOXe8WbF2EUTwxzbh2RgVM B28w== X-Received: by 10.66.122.196 with SMTP id lu4mr16505157pab.129.1364791719424; Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:48:39 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.66.86.34 with HTTP; Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:48:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Eitan Adler Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2013 00:48:08 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: considering i386 as a tier 1 architecture To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, FreeBSD Hackers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQn2oLlvosPg8i+mI5NRj8dnnTxBl9t0g96lZH5sNRiakDuKuzvIO2cT2QXns7uQK1Jl1xGE X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:48:40 -0000 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