i686 optimization

[Jeffrey W. Baker]

On Wed, 2006-06-14 at 23:10 +0100, Jack Wasey wrote:
> Pavel Roitberg wrote:
> > Gianmarco Leone wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> considering that Dapper is LTS, couldn't Edgy be 686-optimized? 
> > Its not worth it -i686 does not have a consoderable performance impact 
> > for most programs.
> 
> So why not have -i686, -k7 etc for packages where it does make a 
> difference? We already do this for kernel and to some extent for libc6. 
> Compression libs are used often in the background, and some rendering or 
> 3d stuff would definitely benefit and be used if falling back when no 
> fancy graphics card is present. What else? Encryption libs?
> 
> Why not auto-detect processor type on install, and choose a handful of 
> key k7 686 or whatever other sub-arch packages?

Several packages already work this way, loading cpu-specific routines at
runtime.

-jwb