considering i386 as a tier 1 architecture

[Alfred Perlstein]

As far I can tell it's now April 2nd in all time zones.

Can we now end this thread?

thank you,
-Alfred


On 4/2/13 6:22 AM, Paul Schenkeveld wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 02, 2013 at 10:22:20AM +0000, Ruben de Groot wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 02, 2013 at 03:10:56AM -0700, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk typed:
>>> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:04 AM, Dag-Erling Sm??rgrav <des at des.no> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wojciech Puchar <wojtek at wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> writes:
>>>>> Lev Serebryakov <lev at FreeBSD.org> writes:
>>>>>> It is not exact so. Some Atoms on some motherboards with some
>>>>>> firmwares are 64-bit CPU.
>>>>> don't know of any now in shops that are not
>>>> http://soekris.com/products/net5501.html
>>>> http://soekris.com/products/net6501.html
>>>>
>>>> DES
>>>> --
>>>> Dag-Erling Sm??rgrav - des at des.no
>>>>
>>>
>>> I am NOT able to understand the merit of these products with respect to
>>> their features and PRICES .
>> They are extremely stable and robust.
>>
>>> It is possible to assemble much more cheaper full featured PC like systems
>>> ( DDR3 memory , 64-bit capable processors , with a disadvantage about power
>>> requirements ) .
>> You can also get much bigger portions at MacDonald than what you get in a
>> five star restaurant.
> Soekris boards are perhaps not five star boards but at least they have
> four :)
>
> Although the thread started as an april fools day prank, it's getting
> serious now about the value of having i386 next to amd64.
>
> I'm using quite a number of net4501/net4801/net5501/net6501 in many
> places just because I haven't found anything that can to the same job
> with the same reliability at the same low power diet for a reasonable
> price.
>
> For people on a tight budget with lower reliability expectations there
> are the PC-engines Alix boards.  Except for the net6501, none of these
> can run amd64.
>
> Even though the net6501 can run amd64, I prefer running i386 on them
> (and other boards where I do not need >= 4GB of RAM or the large address
> space) instead of amd64 just because the system image is so much smaller,
> requiring less storage on your filesystem (often a small flash device),
> less time to upload changes over the Internet when doing remote upgrades
> and they are more efficient with virtual memory.  Running amd64 when not
> really needed is just a waste of resources.
>
> There have been discussions in the past whether is would make sense to
> run a 32-bit userland on top of a amd64 kernel sou you can have >4GB of
> RAM but keep your userland relatively small.  There are only few
> applications that really benefit from 64 bit address space, others could
> well be 32 bit apps.
>
> Just some random numbers to illustrate my point:
>
> i386$ size /bin/sh /bin/ls /usr/bin/find /usr/bin/cc
>
>     text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
>   111533    1048    7460  120041   1d4e9 /bin/sh
>    22808     572     396   23776    5ce0 /bin/ls
>    33098     760    3392   37250    9182 /usr/bin/find
>   314841    9376   18204  342421   53995 /usr/bin/cc
>
> amd64$ size /bin/sh /bin/ls /usr/bin/find /usr/bin/cc
>
>     text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
>   129371    1992   10272  141635   22943 /bin/sh
>    26255    1144     536   27935    6d1f /bin/ls
>    43464    1352    4680   49496    c158 /usr/bin/find
>   383330   15296   58664  457290   6fa4a /usr/bin/cc
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Paul Schenkeveld
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