Jeremy Katz wrote:
That said, we currently do install the PAE kernel if you have 4 GB+ of RAM[1]. Switching to it by default is problematic because then we're back to using different kernels for different cases
You have that now, don't you? One case for <4GB and one for >=4GB. Worse, if you install more memory, the kernel doesn't see it.
Downgrading your CPU to one which does not support PAE should be rare.
and it also makes the 'what do you with the live image' case a lot more complex.
I'd just go with PAE here.
The _real_ fix here is to get PAE runtime much like was finally done with SMP :-)
Patches, as they say, are welcome. But you could install both kernels and have the bootloaded choose (sticks wax balls into ears).