Re: Processor requirements

[Bas Wijnen]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 04:07:06PM +0100, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> > I'm not saying that dropping the 486 is a desirable thing. I'm saying
> > that we are kidding ourselves if we think it's going to be done well.
> 
> If it takes some years to finish the hurd, i486 is going to be
> obsolete completely by then.

Yes, just like 32 bit CPUs. ;-)

We all know what trouble the ext2 translator has because of them.  I think we
should learn from this that we should not depend on something becoming really
obsolete.

> And if the kernel can be later ported to the older hardware  without
> changing  applications there is no problem with dropping support for some
> less frequently used hardware anyway.

I fully agree that we don't need support for the old hardware initially.  But
we shouldn't make the mistake to design critical parts of the system in ways
that cannot be ported without a complete rewrite of large parts of code. 

Thanks,
Bas

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