cvs commit: src/lib/libc/i386/net htonl.S ntohl.S

[David Schultz]

On Wed, Oct 20, 2004, Erik Trulsson wrote:
> > > > The only people that will seriously want to use i386 these days are
> > > > the folks that build embedded systems.  Those you have to build on
> > > > some host then deploy to the target system.
> > 
> > Yes, and very few of those folks are likely to want a relatively
> > large, non-realtime, monolithic, multi-threaded OS kernel, much
> > less a userland that even vaguely resembles a standard FreeBSD
> > installation.
> > 
> > Every time this issue comes up, someone points out that in fact,
> > FreeBSD still runs on the 80386 that they just threw out.
> > However, nobody ever presents an important reason for *wanting* to
> > run FreeBSD on an 80386.
> 
> The only reason I am not running FreeBSD on an 80386 is that the PSU in
> my 80386sx based computer gave up a few months ago (or at least
> something power-related did.) Until then I was happily running
> 4.10-stable on it and using it as a firewall/gateway.

Okay, so (a) your 80386 doesn't work anymore and (b) you still
seem to be getting along fine without it.  I maintain that it is
still the case that nobody has presented a good reason why the
80386 is an important platform for future versions of FreeBSD.

> If it was still working and support for FPU-less systems hadn't been
> dropped I would have upgraded it to 5-STABLE eventually (along with my
> main machine.) 
> Why would I want to use such an old machine? Easy - because I had it
> and couldn't (and still can't) afford to buy a modern machine.
> I am sure I am not the only one in that position.

First of all, your 80386 (if it worked) would probably be much
snappier running FreeBSD 3.X or 4.X or NetBSD 1.[2-5].  Second,
you can purchase a Linksys gateway for $20, whereas a 386 would
consume more than $20 of power in a few months.

> > Nice.  \me can't wait for the day when developers are no longer
> > required to spend time and effort to support anything older than a PPro.
> 
> That day will hopefully be far in the future. Personally I don't have
> anything as modern as a PPro.

Don't worry, it will be.  I can dream, can't I?