Dropping i386 non-PAE as a supported kernel flavour in Precise Pangolin

[Forest Bond]

Hi,

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 12:24:22PM -0600, Jamie Strandboge wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-11-09 at 14:43 -0700, Tim Gardner wrote:
> > Per discussion at UDS the kernel team is proposing to drop the non-PAE 
> > i386 flavour. The upgrade path for non-PAE users will be the PAE kernel. 
> > Those CPUs that do not have i686 and PAE support will be orphaned. To 
> > the best of my knowledge, these include Intel CPUs prior to Pentium II, 
> > 400Mhz Pentium M, VIA C3, and Geode LX. As far as I know, there are no 
> > laptop or desktop class CPUs being produced that do not meet these 
> > minimum requirements.
> 
> The Geode LX AFAIK is certainly still in use. I know when I was looking
> to buy an embedded system earlier this year, I came across quite a few
> of these in new systems.
> 
> What about simply demoting the binary packages for this flavor, but
> still build it? We wouldn't have to explicitly test it for SRUs/security
> updates or deal with it with LTS backorts, but it would presumably still
> be in ok shape since we would be actively testing the i686 pae kernel.
> It could also provide a (albeit manual) fallback for people where the
> pae kernel doesn't work on their system.

I would really appreciate this approach.  I think these CPUs are primarily used
in thin clients, appliances, embedded, etc.  I suspect having the kernel
available in the repos is sufficient in most of those cases.

Thanks,
Forest
-- 
Forest Bond
http://www.alittletooquiet.net
http://www.rapidrollout.com
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