XXI century and still using 386 packages...

[Alberto Núñez]

Thanks all for your answers. I see I was a little mistaken about
Ubuntu compilation. I don't come from gentoo if you thought that :-)
The latest distro I used was ArchLinux, a 686 compiled distribution,
thats why I asked that.


On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 11:45:01 -0800, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 08:09:58PM +0100, Alberto Núñez wrote:
> 
> > I suppose I'm not the first that comment this...  We are in 2005, with new
> > technologies and amazingly fast systems...  and we are using prehistoric
> > system aimed packages. How many people does use a 386 desktop computer?
> > How many people use a 486 desktop computer? Even Pentiums, nobody surf
> > internet today with a pentium (well, someone...)
> 
> This has already been discussed at length, resulting in an entry in the FAQ.
> I can summarize as follows:
> 
> - Ubuntu packages are compiled using the i486 instruction set (not i386),
>   choosing between equivalent instruction sequences based on the choice
>   which should perform best on Pentium 4 CPUs (-march=i486 -mcpu=pentium4).
> 
> - Ubuntu is more than just a desktop OS
> 
> - Use of the few additional instructions added in later Pentium CPUs is
>   unlikely to make a significant difference in the overall performance of
>   your system
> 
> - For cases where these additional instructions do make a big difference
>   (such as MMX), support for them is already detected and enabled
>   automatically
> 
> > What do you think about that? I know you are going to tell me that it's
> > 386 because everybody has the right to use an Ubuntu system, but yes,
> > those people with that old hardware are be capable of installing ubuntu,
> > but not to use it.
> 
> I run Ubuntu on an embedded 486 system (my router/NAT/firewall).
> 
> --
>  - mdz
> 
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