Re: No i686 kernel: Can we require SSE2 for i686?

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I'll bite, sort of.  When bugs get reported through normal upstream channels that affect parts of the kernel that I'm involved in, they generally get fixed.  That includes i686 and even 486.  I flipped through several of the open i686 Fedora bugs, and they look familiar and look like issues that are now fixed.  In practice, the upstream kernel seems to work quite well on i686, and 486 support is likely better than it's been in years.

So I'm wondering if a decent solution would be for the Fedora kernel maintainers to keep building i686 kernels but to explicitly not support them.

Of course, Fedora  should strongly encourage users with 64-bit capable hardware to run 64-bit Fedora and maybe even provide an upgrade path.  Heck, maybe the kernel packages could be jiggered up to put a 64-bit kernel on i686 Fedora if the CPU supports it.

--Andy

On Jul 12, 2017, at 1:03 PM, Eric Griffith <egriffith92@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My own two cents in this whole thing, after reading this entire thread... Matt's right.

This isn't a call to action because the release is a week away and there's critical 32-but bugs that need fixed. This isn't a call for support because there's specific bugs that need fixed. 

This is a call to arms for a handful of people--a team-- to own 32-bit kernels and their issues both now AND into the future. To deep dive EVERY issue that comes in and figure out the problem, and fix it. 

Hans, the reason you're not getting a list of specific bugs, is because thats kind of the point. "What can we do to help?" isn't really a helpful question. It implies specific issues, which misses the point. 

What you, or anyone else, can do to help is step up and say "I am willing to own i686 kernels from this moment and going into the future. I will triage bugzilla and prioritize things, I will ask for help on specific issues once I have identified them." And then go down that. 

Unless someone steps up, the reality is i686 kernels are gonna die. They may not OFFICIALLY die, but they'll die a slow death because no one cares, and no one is testing outside of OpenQA. Bugs will occur, breaks will happen, maybe they'll get reported or maybe they won't. 

Personally I couldn't care less about i686 kernels or whether or not they work. Every machine I own is 64bit capable and has 4Gb of RAM or more. 

If anyone out there DOES care about these kernels, AND has the time to donate AND has the skills necessary to support them, AND actually cares about this enough to actually put in the time.. then they need to speak up. 

Cheers!
Eric

On Jul 12, 2017, at 15:17, Samuel Sieb <samuel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 07/12/2017 12:12 PM, Matthew Smith wrote:
On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 8:03 PM, Samuel Sieb <samuel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
I guess if this change goes through I
will be looking into how to run a 64-bit kernel and 32-bit userspace.  We
also still have a few laptops that are running 32-bit Fedora, but they don't
have to and they will all be retired within a year anyway.
Why do you want to keep the 32-bit userspace?

I could be wrong, but since they only have 2GB of RAM, I think that the 32-bit userspace takes less runtime memory.
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