Hi,
On 12-07-17 15:18, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 9:09 AM, Hans de Goede
<hdegoede(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 11-07-17 22:57, Josh Boyer wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 4:41 PM, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski
>> <dominik(a)greysector.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, 11 July 2017 at 22:26, Florian Weimer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I ran into this unannounced change:
>>>>
>>>>
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Stop_Building_i686_Kernels
>>>
>>>
>>> I noticed this is categorized as self-contained, which I think is wrong.
>>>
>>> I also have hardware that would no longer run Fedora after such change
>>> (a netbook with an older Intel Atom CPU which supports SSE2, but is
>>> 32bit). Unless the change proponent can provide some numbers suggesting
>>> that 32bit users are a tiny minority of our userbase, I'll probably
>>> be against such change.
>>
>>
>> Anyone with 32-bit hardware is going to be against this change. It is
>> a known downside. It also doesn't change the fact that i686 kernels
>> are in a zombie state, where the kernel team does not actively support
>> them and the community has not significantly stepped up to do so.
>
>
> I still have (some) 32 bit hardware in use and I must say that I was
> not aware of this zombie state. i686 kernels have been working fine for
> me otherwise I would have likely stepped up to fix things (or if that
> was too much work replace my last 32bit hardware), but I may just have
> been lucky and never hit a bad kernel.
>
> If the kernel team wants some specific help with ia32 support then
> 2 things need to happen:
>
> 1) A clear request for help needs to be send
> 2) What exactly they need help with needs to be clearly defined
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2015-February/208368.html
Which is yet another generic, non specific call for help. Which
unsurprisingly (given its unspecificness) did probably not get
a lot of response.
What would be helpful is a concrete list of things people who
care about i686 can work about. For example an i686 kernel tracker
bug + link to that on the
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Kernel
page.
I believe that something among the lines of: "we need help, but we
are not really specifying what, still please do something" is not
going to get you a lot of help.
OTOH "here is a prioritized list of TODO items, if all of the
high prio items have not been solved before $date, then we are
going to have to drop ia32 support from F28" OTOH will likely
be much more effective IMHO. This will cut 2 ways:
1) It will likely get the kernel team more help
2) If the kernel team does not get help, or not enough, then
you have a strong argument that not enough people care about
ia32 bit support and it should be dropped
Regards,
Hans