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

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 13:14, Bruce Smith wrote:
> Depends on how Redhat organizes their CDs.  If the 386/486 stuff is
> completely isolated on their own CDs, which are not needed for any other
> installs, then screw 'em, they're gone from BSware!  I'm not spending
> any effort on CDs to support that old of hardware.  

But there is 386 stuff on the binary CD #2 that they _all_use_.  Again,
I'm advocating _only_ 25-40% of packages be compiled "optimized."  Only
CD #1 changes.  CD #2 doesn't.

Okay, let me break this down by _user_.  First off, let's simplify the
names of the CDs:

  Binary CD #1 "Default" = Bin 1
  Binary CD #1 "Intel Pentium/II/III/4" = Bin 1i
  Binary CD #1 "AMD Athlon/x86-64" = Bin 1a
  Binary CD #2 = Bin 2

                     Binary CD set
                     --------------------------
Any uP               Bin 2 + Bin 1
Pentium uP           Bin 2 + Bin 1 *OR* 1i
Athlon/x86-64 uP     Bin 2 + Bin 1 *OR* 1a
Pentium SMP/64GB     Bin 2 + Bin 1i
Athlon/x86-64 MP     Bin 2 + Bin 1a

As such, to accomodate _any_ uP (uniprocessor) user, all you need is the
"Default" set.  This works on Pentium, Athlon _and_ x86-64 uniprocessor
systems (4GB or less in the case of the first two, among other kernel
2.4 defaults).

The optimized versions are only required for specialized kernels like
MP, pre-empt patch uP versions, 64GB memory support (except for x86-64
which is >>64GB by default, etc...).

> Since we have no idea how Redhat might organize the CDs, not to mention
> _IF_ they are going to do anything like this, we're just speculating.

No, I wasn't even "speculating."  I was _suggesting_.  We have several
RedHat employees on the lists in Orlando and Jax.

-- Bryan

-- 
If consumers are liable to "correctly" license someone's IP, why aren't
IP holders held liable when they unjustly force the same consumers to
license the same IP more than once?  "Piracy" is a double-edged sword.
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Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc            mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals             http://www.SmithConcepts.com