Hi Paul, I followed a bit the thread you started in [1]. As you might know i386 got eliminated in Linux-3.8. I had several discussions with the Debian kernel-team about the iN86 (N=4..6) and PAE kernel-flavours. On the one hand I can understand the reduction of linux-images especially for iN86. Even i486 is a bit unfirm as there is no much hardware around, but Debian will keep i486 for a while (release maintenance). Topic PAE: Unfortunately, I had a notebook with a Intel Centrino Banias CPU (no PAE) which should use the -486 kernel-flavour due to the Debian kernel-team. I played with some different kernel-setup which did not give me more benefit (openssl benchmarks etc.) The -686-pae kernel did run on my hardware, but as known with all the SMP-NO-OPs. Depending on the hardware, it really makes sense to switch to x86_64 (amd64) architecture when you have a modern computer. Switching makes even more sense when you have more than 4GiB RAM. IMHO using a -686-amd64 Debian kernel makes ZERO sense, real 64-Bit or die! I switched to 64-bit... and I switched from Debian/sid to Ubuntu/precise as well :-). ( NOTE: I am working here since April 2012 in a WUBI environment (no native Ubuntu Linux) :-). ) And I am building my kernels by myself. So I know very well whom to blame :-). Some last words: I had several fruitful or fruitless discussions with the Debian kernel-team, but I can confirm (with all my heart) this team makes a fantastic job. I can recommend you Ben's blog (recently I read a series about news in the Debian/wheezy kernel) if your world is Debian or Ubuntu (Debian != Ubuntu). Just my 0.02EUR (no British pound, here as well: when you are a member of the EU chose EUR not pound!). Regards, - Sedat - [1] http://marc.info/?t=135796172200001&r=1&w=2 -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>