Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:44:24 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Maciej W. Rozycki" <macro@linux-mips.org>
To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
cc: Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
       Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>,
       Adam Osuchowski <adwol@zonk.pl>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
       "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Subject: Re: Is 386 processor still supported?
In-Reply-To: <20090115142541.5a7711b1@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
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On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Alan Cox wrote:

> > userland support with little burden for both Linux and respective user 
> > software maintainers.  Certainly it adds some bloat to the kernel, but I 
> > think it is not an option that should be outright dismissed without 
> > consideration.
> 
> Nobody normally builds for 386 (and you need the big FPU emulator etc too
> and pay a big penalty for the lack of working WP bits) so it wouldn't be
> a big penalty if you can actually find an i386 user any more ;)

 You can actually escape the FPU emulator if you have a proper computer 
(an i386/80287 combo, anyone? ;) -- we've got it right actually :) ), but 
the rest and overall I agree with you.  And I think i386-class cores can 
be still seen in some embedded applications, so there may be non-epsilon 
interest yet.

  Maciej
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