Why no i586 port for debian ?

wearetheborg · 05-14-2007, 03:43 AM

Mandriva has a i586/i686 port, why not debian ?
Wont it run faster if optimised more ?
i586 seems to be pretty common these days ....

acid_kewpie · 05-14-2007, 03:53 AM

i586 is just about obselete these days... i386 builds are useful as a rock bottom one size fits all for intel x86 cpus. i686 are useful as they use the latest5 cpu extensions in the x86 branch. i586 just flaots about in the middle really, not serving much use other that pentium 1's and amd k6's i think. do you really know you have a need to 586 and not 686 or 386?

wearetheborg · 05-14-2007, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acid_kewpie

i586 is just about obselete these days... i386 builds are useful as a rock bottom one size fits all for intel x86 cpus. i686 are useful as they use the latest5 cpu extensions in the x86 branch. i586 just flaots about in the middle really, not serving much use other that pentium 1's and amd k6's i think. do you really know you have a need to 586 and not 686 or 386?

OK, an i686 port then

Also, I'm planning to install debian on laptops, is the stock i386 kernel fine or are there better kernels which are optimised for laptops ?

IsaacKuo · 05-14-2007, 10:30 AM

Debian Etch has i686 kernels, for sure--that's what the Etch installer used in most of my recent Etch installs. On my old Pentium 120, the Etch installer defaulted to the i486 kernel. I didn't bother upgrading it to an i586 kernel, because of my past experience that such an upgrade doesn't have a noticeable effect.

Actually, that's the bottom line...I never got a noticeable speed difference with upgrading a kernel to a different processor architecture, so I just leave whatever the installer puts in.

mikieboy · 05-14-2007, 02:44 PM

Originally posted by wearetheborg:

Quote:

Also, I'm planning to install debian on laptops, is the stock i386 kernel fine or are there better kernels which are optimised for laptops ?

It depends on the processor in the laptop. There are stock kernels for every common architecture (e.g.I'm currently using K7 for an AMD Athlon). You would also be well advised to recompile your kernel to optimise it for your laptop. Hope this helps.

Originally posted by IsaacKuo:

Quote:

..I never got a noticeable speed difference with upgrading a kernel to a different processor architecture, so I just leave whatever the installer puts in.

In my experience, a recompile gives the most significant speed boost. It gets rid of the unwanted overhead.