[oi-dev] OI project reboot required

[Peter Tribble]

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Garrett D'Amore <garrett.damore at dey-sys.com
> wrote:

>
> On May 12, 2013, at 8:51 AM, Alan Coopersmith <alan.coopersmith at oracle.com>
> wrote:
>
> > It has been a few years since Oracle upstream dropped 32-bit i386
> support,
> > so that's just one of the decisions OI has to make - track upstream as is
> > or fork/patch as needed to continue to support 32-bit on i386.
>
> Yep.  And that has sweeping consequences; lots of things depend upon it
> this decision.
>
> I'm of the opinion that enough time has passed that we should seriously
> consider doing the same.  Its been about a decade since  64-bit  x86
> systems came on the scene (Opteron was released in June 2003).
>

I seriously considered killing all support for 32-bit CPUs in Tribblix
from the start. The main reason I didn't is that it's (currently) extra
work to strip out 32-bit from the packages.

I haven't seen a serious use of a 32-bit only CPU in production in over 5
> years.


My OI laptop is 32-bit only. It's on its deathbed, only waiting for me
to find a newer one that Illumos will actually boot and install on.

 And I think most hobbyists upgrade their kit more frequently as well -- I
> have to believe almost everyone is on 64-bit kit these days.  Furthermore,
> most interesting systems (based on illumos) require more memory than is
> practical with a 32-bit only CPU.
>

I think that argument is specious, though. Tribblix gives you a fully
functional graphical desktop in 512M (OK, so you're not going to run
firefox for very long!).

The other area is that "test" or play systems tend to be older ones that
aren't in use for front-line service. That's also an interesting area for
Illmuos distros, as we might be in better shape for driver support on
something that isn't brand new. (As a case in point, none of my available
sparc test systems will run S11, as support for all of them was dropped
as well.) The same is true of people taking home retired office kit, it's
not
new.


> I have to believe we could eliminate a *lot* of baggage by nixing 32-bit
> support.  I *know* we can, because I've nixed a bunch of system utilities
> in our DEY environment that were delivered in both 32 and 64 bit variants.
>

Not to mention simplification by eliminating the isaexec dance.


> We're going to have to support a 32-bit userland for some time to come,
> unfortunately, but we should no longer make that the default, and we should
> deliver all of our system utilities in 64-bit only form, IMO; and we could
> entirely kill off the 32-bit kernel.
>
> Alternatively, if there is sufficient demand, one could imagine a separate
> architecture for ia32, that is the 32-bit variant port.
>

I think the key there is to manage the transition. Provided those who
want to continue with a 32-bit platform are able to do so, I don't see
a problem. But I can imagine distros producing a "final" 32-bit release,
and then moving on. I know I would. It just has to be announced and
planned for - it's really a rather major flag day.

-- 
-Peter Tribble
http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/
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