Re: Processor requirements

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 22:53 -0300, Leonardo Lopes Pereira wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:07:37 -0500
> "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> This is a good question, If I need to say what kind of computers we
> need to support TODAY, I think that still important the support of
> i486 and i586. I do not know where do you live, but they are very used
> here, in Brazil. But if you think that this project will support
> computers of 2015 (I think that I am very optmist), I beleave that
> support to i586 is needed.

Leonardo:

The performance gap between the fastest i486 and a current Pentium-IV is
nearly three decimal orders of magnitude. Regardless of what instruction
set Hurd compiles for, there is simply no way that this large a range
can be effectively supported by a single set of applications.

Try running FC4 on a 486 and you'll see what I'm talking about.

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.

shap