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List:       ubuntu-devel-discuss
Subject:    Re: Proposal: Let's drop i386
From:       Matthias Klose <doko () ubuntu ! com>
Date:       2018-05-13 18:34:33
Message-ID: a542afec-1fe2-5d79-cd14-8d7759a96dfb () ubuntu ! com
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On 13.05.2018 05:00, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 11:25 PM, Thomas Ward <teward@thomas-ward.net> wrote:
>> However, killing i386 support globally could introduce issues, including
>> but not limited to certain upstream softwares having to go away
>> entirely, due to the interdependency or issues with how certain apps
>> work (read; Wine, 32-bit support, 64-bit support being flaky, and
>> Windows apps being general pains in that they work on 32bit but not
>> always on 64-bit).
> 
> If 32-bit x86 support becomes mainly a thing that's run on x86_64
> hardware as a compatibility measure for things like Wine, it would
> make sense to bring the instruction set baseline to the x86_64 level.
> Specifically, it would make sense to compile the 32-bit x86 packages
> with SSE2 unconditionally enabled.
> 
> This would mean dropping support for Pentium Pro and earlier or Athlon
> XP and earlier, but it's pretty sad to leave all that performance on
> the table in order to support the few computers still in use that have
> Pentium Pro or earlier or Athlon XP or earlier.
> 
> As upstream software assumes SSE2 as the baseline, it will be less and
> less a run-time check and compiling software without SSE2 will mean
> shipping it in a damaged form performance-wise.

I disagree, until you provide data how many packages fail to build, at least in
the testsuites, when run without the extra x87 precision bits.

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