[KLUG Members] REDHAT: My suggestion on organizing binary CDs for x86 chip-specific optimizations

[Bruce Smith]

> Bruce (among others) might be interested in commenting on this (I won't
> repost the whole thing here, just the URL):
> http://www.matrixlist.com/pipermail/leaplist/2002-April/019299.html

Oh, okay, I'll comment.   :-)

First on the NFS distro.  That's a very good idea, but personally I
don't have enough Linux boxes to make it worth my while.  For KLUG it
wouldn't sell any CD's.  When the day comes when we convert all of our
Windows boxes to Linux at work, then I'll probably make a NFS distro
available here.  (unless we go with all LSTP boxes :)

As far as creating different CD's for different CPU's, that's something
I've kicked around for awhile.  I think it'd be great to have an P-II+
and an Athlon only distribution.  However . . . I'm not sure it's worth
my time - personally.  And it WOULD take a LOT OF EXTRA TIME!

If there was a GREAT demand for it from CD buying KLUG members, then I'd
think harder.  A LOT greater demand than I have for the SGI/XFS CD!!!

With the price of hardware now, is it worth the time to create a CPU
specific distribution?  Personally, I have more CPU horsepower than I
need on my desktops.  My favorite editor is VI, would a i686 optimized
VI binary help me?  I think not.  All my servers have underutilized
CPU's now, so slightly more efficient binaries wouldn't do me any good.

But I'm only one case.  How about everyone else?  How many people would
notice a 1%-10% performance boost in _certain_ binaries?  (the kernel
and glibc are already CPU optimized, for the most part)

And for you guys running Linux on an old 386, you already have a
complete distribution optimized for your specific CPU!!!   ;-)

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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