Hmmm ...
My only concern about this is that it's often difficult or impossible to
run an x86_64 distro inside a VM.
So one very definite negative of this change is that it'd restrict
many/most people's ability to run Arch inside of a VM - something I've
done many times, and have found very convenient, and which would be a
shame to lose.
Just my $0.02.
DR
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [arch-announce] Dropping i686 support
Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:03:08 -0000
From: Recent News Updates <announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Arch Linux Announcements <arch-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: arch-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Recently the developers have been discussing the possibility of adding
some additional optimizations to our i686 port to improve multimedia
support. This would involve reducing the compatibility with older
systems. As some of you may have heard ([1], Google translation [2]),
this discussion has resulted in the decision to focus exclusively on the
x86_64 port. The overall opinion of the developers is that the x86_64
port is now complete enough to justify this decision and that this is in
keeping with Arch's philosophy of supporting current generation
hardware. The x86_64 architecture has been available since 2002
(compared to i686 which is from 1995), and we believe most of our i686
users have x86_64 compatible hardware. An official time-line for the
deprecation of the i686 port has not been established, but an official
announcement needs to be made, as the decision has already been leaked
to the ArchLinux-BR community. However, it is likely that major updates
(GNOME, KDE, Xor
g, etc) will not be built for i686 in the immediate future. Users will
still be able to build packages for i686 packages using ABS. As most of
the architecture specific patches are for x86_64, this should be
relatively pain free. [1] <a
href="http://groups.google.com/group/archlinux-br/browse_thread/thread/d1b6075adf9eba2d";>http://groups.google.com/group/archlinux-br/browse_thread/thread/d1b6075adf9eba2d</a>
[2] <a
href="http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fgroup%2Farchlinux-br%2Fbrowse_thread%2Fthread%2Fd1b6075adf9eba2d&sl=pt&tl=en&history_state0=";>http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fgroup%2Farchlinux-br%2Fbrowse_thread%2Fthread%2Fd1b6075adf9eba2d&sl=pt&tl=en&history_state0=</a>
URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/440/
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