Hmmm .....
Just browsing thru ...
technosaurus wrote:"Some areas where a higher architecture would be acceptable are encoders/decoders"
This is an area which I agree with you. There are 2 spectrum ends of en/decoders. The lower end and the higher end. The lower ends like mp3s are already highly optimized to benefit from an fpu and that is not even mmx. A i486dx-66 can do mp3s without choking on itself. The higher ends and more complicated pure software en/decoders like h264 (which is gaining more and more prominence each day) needs at least a p3-800 with fast sub-systems to barely scrape through doing 480p. A properly optimized and efficient decoders with proper arch support works best in this area. (I still haven't found a decoder that can beat CoreAVC. Heck, it's still the fastest even when wrapper-wrapped in linux).
I just have to dig up something that I stumbled upon sometime ago that basically says, "one needs i486 emulation in kernel to run on actual i386 hardware" ... please read at
http://people.debian.org/~joey/pr/3.1/i386.html
Frankly, I'd go for a generic i586 kernel meself and do a max'ed out fully optimized custom machine tuned kernel whenever necessary. Sure, I like the old k2.6.21.7 for the simple reason of being surrounded by antique/classic hardwares. Yeah, I still have a i386DX-20mhz board with 8MB (70ns) FP RAM SIMMs (that's 70nanoseconds Fast Page RAM Single Inline Memory Modules for those wondering). Sure, it still boots up fine but no one's gonna make me boot linux on it (unless you're paying me for a demo, haha). Yeah, I also have a couple i486DX2-66mhz board with 16MB (60ns) EDO RAM ... One of it is running Freesco right now ... Puppy? Don't think so, it's gonna choke-n-sputter if I put puppy on it ...
So, I guess that the most logical and rational base hardware suitable for puppy testing is a pentium 133 with at least 64MB RAM. Yeah, I have in my collection the complete range from iP75 right up to iP233mmx ... But I'd prefer to run at least a Cyrix mII-300 or a K6-2/400 with 128MB RAM for base h/w puppy testing ...
I was interested with the xcore86 SoC when edubook came out ... but not anymore after it became clear to me why it's sluggish even at 1Ghz. A similar ARM SoC at 1Ghz would be running circles around it ...
Anyway, techno, what's the point of "arguing" about which arch to base on? I'm sure you're more than qualified to decide the cut-off point for h/w support (just don't forget to set a reasonable acpi bios cut-off date, ok?). Stretching support for older hardware is fine but there should be a limit to it. All those ancient/antique/classic hardwares have their places but it doesn't seem to make sense to me to force the latest and greatest linux (apps/kernel) down their throat. I'm happy to plonk in a k2.6.21.7 on these old classics and I have no qualms doing a custom config kernel, libs and apps if there's a need for the latest h/w.
techno, you just do what you think and feel is right, whether its i486, i586, tickless, smp, nosmp, hyperthreading or whatever. However, if I may make a suggestion, offering a couple of official kernel to cater for uniproc/smp/ht can be beneficial in the long run ...
Rgds