[lubuntu-users] dropping i386/PPC (was: Re: [lubuntu-devel] State of PPC)

[Aere Greenway]

On 11/16/2016 05:45 AM, Julien Lavergne wrote:
> 2016-11-14 21:36 GMT+01:00 Walter Lapchynski <wxl at ubuntu.com>:
>> It should be pointed out that this discussion is not only about PPC but it's
>> also about i386. Since i386 is a major target of Lubuntu, I would advise
>> attendance.
>>
> I'm woking this day, so I will not be able to attempt :-(
>
> However, dropping i386 will be a very bad signal for our users. It
> will be difficult to maintain the fact that Lubuntu is for old
> computers if this kind of support is dropped ...
>
> Regards,
> Julien Lavergne
>
Walter & Julien:

What is meant by the proposal of "dropping i386"?

Does it mean dropping all 32-bit machines (as 'i386' in Debian packages 
would imply)?

If so, I think that would be a very extreme, draconian thing to do.

In my particular case, it would mean that seven of the machines in my 
test-bed would have to be consigned to the junk-heap.

If it affects me this drastically, I'm sure it will negatively impact a 
lot of other users.

Even if a machine can run 64-bit, if it doesn't have a lot of memory, I 
will use the i386 version of the OS, because it uses the limited memory 
better, and requires measurably less memory for the OS.

If, on the other hand, 'dropping i386' means removing support for 
Intel-based machines that don't have support of certain 
machine-instructions, it would be less of an impact (probably two 
machines in my test-bed to be junked), but I would also loose the 
ability to test with minimum machines because of that.

I am unable to test with virtual box machines because virtual box 
introduces too much latency (delay between pressing a key and hearing 
the sound).

-- 
Sincerely,
Aere