From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: swedebugia Subject: Re: End of beta soon? drop i686? Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2018 13:26:49 +0100 Message-ID: References: <87y38val12.fsf@netris.org> <87bm5r5w13.fsf@elephly.net> <20181212074023.GA1383@jurong> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42983) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gXQ54-0003Gt-SL for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 13 Dec 2018 07:27:11 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gXQ51-000419-Eg for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 13 Dec 2018 07:27:06 -0500 Received: from mx1.riseup.net ([198.252.153.129]:33381) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gXQ50-0002jU-V2 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 13 Dec 2018 07:27:03 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20181212074023.GA1383@jurong> Content-Language: en-US List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Andreas Enge , Ricardo Wurmus Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org On 2018-12-12 08:40, Andreas Enge wrote: > On Wed, Dec 12, 2018 at 03:16:56AM +0100, Ricardo Wurmus wrote: >>> I'm opposed to dropping i686 support. If we dropped support for systems >>> that are not well supported in Guix, the only system left standing would >>> be x86_64-linux. I believe it is of paramount importance that Guix be >>> portable to multiple processor architectures. Even if we are not yet >>> able to provide a good user experience on other systems, we can still >>> keep the bulk of our code portable and multi-architecture aware. >> >> I whole-heartedly agree with Mark. We will not drop i686 support. > > And a big advantage of i686, even if noone were to use it anymore, is that > we have a large build farm capacity, since it is built on the x86_64 machines. > So it can act as our "canary in the mine", warning of portability problems. Thanks for sharing your views on this. I suggest we clearly state in the download page and or in the manual (Limitations) that i686 is a somewhat rough experience with not as many substitutes as x86_64 and might have more bugs too. -- Cheers Swedebugia