On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, Angelo wrote: > Fedora Core is an excellent distro, it is complete, easy and features a > lot of packages. > > I think that the only thing it misses is to release an i686 optimized > version (just like i386 and amd64). Packages compiled with that > optimization would be a lot faster, and i think that 99% of fedora users > run a i686-compatible processor: > - Intel sold starting from 1995: Pentium Pro, Pentium 2, Pentium 3, > Pentium 4 > - All AMDs > > The i686 is really more powerful, it is pipelined, it features hardcoded > floating point (FPU), it can process more than 1 instruction per cycle.. > but all this features are all wasted if it isn't compiled to use them. > GCC can take advantage of all the new instruction provided with i686 > really well, the builds will be identical to the i386 one and you can > provide both archs in two different folders. > > Just one question, why not ? The new instructions available on the i686 don't give a substantial performance benefit in most situations, and it would be a big effort (and lots more disk space) to add in i686 builds of everything. The packages that are the most performance-intensive (glibc and the kernel) do have i686-only builds already available. The rest of the Fedora Core packages are presently built with -mtune=pentium4, which does all the scheduling & optimization for a Pentium4, but makes sure that the packages will still run on an i386 if needed. Best, -- Elliot The daring is in the doing http://people.redhat.com/sopwith/
