[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?

[Tux99]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, [utf-8] André Machado wrote:

> Despite Mageia main target be current computers, we must think in
> these people; 32-bit will not die anytime soon. Then: Do we need
> compile 32-bit edition as i586 - and support Pentium and above, i686 -
> and support Pentium Pro and above, or do a Mageia Lite edition?

That's a very good point you make there, why are we talking about 
i586/i686 at all since the best optimization for a modern PC is to 
install the 64bit version?!

We should have:
Mageia 32bit i586, which is ideal for old PCs
Mageia 64bit, which is ideal for modern PC (which are 64bit capable)

Why do we need 32bit with i686 optimizations at all?

Anyone who wants a modern system optimized for speed should use the 
64bit version anyway, since that's much faster than any 32bit with 
i686 optimizations.

Also AFAIK the Atom runs faster with i586 than i686 because it doesn't 
have out-of-order execution.

So i686 would make Mageia slower on Atom netbooks.