Alan Cox wrote:
All the core packages are built i686 optimised.
i see only kernel, glibc and openssl
We just build them to be 686 optimised without using the tiny number of 486 and higher instructions relevant to user space. That gives takes us within fractions of a %age point of pure 686 optimisation and doesn't break compatibility for the many non i686 systems running Fedora
sure, but the system spends a lot of cpu time in user space when used as desktop, operations on strings, floating point operations and arithmetic in general, java virtual machine, image processing, video playback, sound processing and all other programs demanding a lot of cpu frequently (xfree, gnome just to say the first two i've thougth). All the instructions you've stripped out could boost performance on the system really a lot!
Just think about mirror the fedora core release in two *identical to compile* archs in two different, this change is trasparent for all the old system running fedora and will make really the difference.
Regards, Angelo
