Changing the default 32-bit x86 arch for Fedora 12

[Hans de Goede]

On 06/15/2009 07:53 PM, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Way back when in February [1], FESCo decided that for Fedora 11, i586 would
> be the default architecture, and for Fedora 12, it would be some variant of
> i686. It's time to follow through on that action item.
>
> I've submitted https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/F12X86Support. It
> defines the default arch as i686 + SSE2.
>
> Why?
>
> - Faster and more consistent FP math by using SSE2 registers
> - Allows for autovectorization by GCC where necessary
> - More clearly delineates our support set of targets, sticking true
>    to forwards innovation, not necessarily legacy support
>
> What CPUs do we lose that F11 supports?
>
> - Intel i586 (all)
> - Intel Pentium Pro
> - Intel Pentium II
> - Intel Pentium III
> - 32-bit AMD Athlon
> - AMD Geode
> - VIA C3
> - Transmeta Crusoe
>

Hmm,

I must say I'm not a fan of this moving to i686 by default is fine, but
the SSE2 requirenent is a bit steep IMHO. To give an example, the family
laptop in the living room (which everybody in the family still uses
happily) is a compaq n600c, which has a PIII mobile, and thus no SSE2,
isn't one of the charms of Linux supposed to be it runs well with older
hardware, well know what it does!

That laptop runs F-11 perfectly, so maybe we should decide on whether to drop
support for Foo based on a criteria "can an average Foo class machine still
run a stock (so gnome, firefox, etc) Fedora decently ?"

And in that case dropping support for anything which does not have SSE2 seems
a bit steep.

Regards,

Hans