I am setting up a fanless 1GB VIA C7 system to run Asterisk. (It also has a 32GB SSD -- no moving parts at all!) By default anaconda uses the i686 PAE kernel for this system, presumably because the C7 instruction set qualifies it as an i686.
I can't think of any reason to use a PAE kernel on this system, so I'm thinking of switching to the i586 kernel. Can anyone see any disadvantage to making the switch?
Any problem using the i686 versions of glibc, openssl, and any other userspace packages?
Thanks!
Ian Pilcher wrote:
I am setting up a fanless 1GB VIA C7 system to run Asterisk. (It also has a 32GB SSD -- no moving parts at all!) By default anaconda uses the i686 PAE kernel for this system, presumably because the C7 instruction set qualifies it as an i686.
I can't think of any reason to use a PAE kernel on this system, so I'm thinking of switching to the i586 kernel. Can anyone see any disadvantage to making the switch?
I think it limits the size of application you can run, although a big application would live mostly in swap and run slowly, and you're unlikely to do that. I can't think of any big benefit, either, if saving a few bytes is an issue you should build a custom kernel and cut out anything you don't need.
Any problem using the i686 versions of glibc, openssl, and any other userspace packages?
No, I have both kernels on several machines and have booted them, at one point the PAE would blank my display on boot and the non-PAE worked (but only used 3 of 8 GB RAM). That went away a while ago, but either will work.
If you think it will make a difference try it, it will boot and run.
On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Ian Pilcher arequipeno@gmail.com wrote:
I am setting up a fanless 1GB VIA C7 system to run Asterisk. (It also has a 32GB SSD -- no moving parts at all!) By default anaconda uses the i686 PAE kernel for this system, presumably because the C7 instruction set qualifies it as an i686.
I can't think of any reason to use a PAE kernel on this system, so I'm thinking of switching to the i586 kernel. Can anyone see any disadvantage to making the switch?
PAE kernel is required for NX bit support (but I'm not sure if your CPU supports it anyway).
On 10/04/2009 06:01 PM, Honza 'thingwath' Bartoš wrote:
PAE kernel is required for NX bit support (but I'm not sure if your CPU supports it anyway).
I didn't know that. According to /proc/cpuinfo, the C7 does support NX, so that's definitely something to consider.
Thanks!
Honza 'thingwath' Bartoš wrote:
On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Ian Pilcher arequipeno@gmail.com wrote:
I am setting up a fanless 1GB VIA C7 system to run Asterisk. (It also has a 32GB SSD -- no moving parts at all!) By default anaconda uses the i686 PAE kernel for this system, presumably because the C7 instruction set qualifies it as an i686.
I can't think of any reason to use a PAE kernel on this system, so I'm thinking of switching to the i586 kernel. Can anyone see any disadvantage to making the switch?
PAE kernel is required for NX bit support (but I'm not sure if your CPU supports it anyway).
And that's a good reason to stay with PAE, assuming the CPU supports NX.