From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 19 21:42:45 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B71C2106564A; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:42:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from delphij@delphij.net) Received: from tarsier.geekcn.org (tarsier.geekcn.org [IPv6:2001:470:a803::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E94108FC19; Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:42:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.geekcn.org (tarsier.geekcn.org [211.166.10.233]) by tarsier.geekcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BC2AA58235; Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:42:37 +0800 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at geekcn.org Received: from tarsier.geekcn.org ([211.166.10.233]) by mail.geekcn.org (mail.geekcn.org [211.166.10.233]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id WQ7VG+GFH9f0; Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:42:32 +0800 (CST) Received: from delta.delphij.net (drawbridge.ixsystems.com [206.40.55.65]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by tarsier.geekcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 066B7A5823E; Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:42:29 +0800 (CST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; s=default; d=delphij.net; c=nofws; q=dns; h=message-id:date:from:reply-to:organization:user-agent: mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to: x-enigmail-version:openpgp:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=j6BoJyaO79t5V2V+2QeYW8G1hryWMEQ5u8ATdmWlLgknGIJqwYmvj/5n84ySrDrV7 kcZK3d4bflP9d9UaDnR/g== Message-ID: <4BA3EFC1.60504@delphij.net> Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:42:25 -0700 From: Xin LI Organization: The Geek China Organization User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD amd64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100304 Thunderbird/3.0.3 ThunderBrowse/3.2.8.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Daniel Eischen References: <4BA2CE17.2050105@delphij.net> <201003190751.26767.jhb@freebsd.org> <4BA3C41F.3000404@elischer.org> <5BED0721-442C-44B3-8B23-3D94BE5354A9@samsco.org> <4BA3E9DF.2050303@delphij.net> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 OpenPGP: id=3FCA37C1; url=http://www.delphij.net/delphij.asc Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Scott Long , d@delphij.net, Julian Elischer , freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Utilize i686, SSE and MMX by default on FreeBSD/i386 X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: d@delphij.net List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:42:45 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2010/03/19 14:24, Daniel Eischen wrote: > On Fri, 19 Mar 2010, Xin LI wrote: > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> On 2010/03/19 13:15, Daniel Eischen wrote: >> [...] >>> Well, we have nanobsd, but having a suitable install tool >>> for small flash-based systems where you want a nanobsd-like >>> setup (readonly filesystems) would be very nice. I try >>> to write procedures for our embedded systems so others >>> (neophytes) can create and burn them, but it might be >>> easier for someone to get started with embedded systems >>> if they could do it from a release using an install tool. >> >> Some computation intense tasks would benefit from enabling certain >> optimizations which is not suitable for older processors. >> >> However, just like John said servers tends to use 64-bit platform more >> than 32-bit ones, so perhaps we can just dismiss the idea of enabling >> these optimizations on FreeBSD/i386 platform and focus on >> FreeBSD/amd64... > > Perhaps I was wrong, but I thought Scott's question was more > general: is there a desire for a special installation suitable > to small appliances (usually flash-based)? At $work we have plans on providing a Flash based images that is specifically built for some need, as a continuation of the FreeNAS project. My understanding is that we want to provide images for more "general" purpose. I knew that there is still a lot of people using i386+PAE kernels on their Linux servers although they have > 4GB of RAM barely because they can "see" the memory in top(1) output. I personally don't think it's a very attrative idea. Perhaps, we can have a separate, FreeBSD based x86 embedded platform SDK, like what Windows CE has offered as their "Platform Builder", that can give one a menu to choose which part the engineer does not want/etc and just build an Flash image for burn into the boot media (ideally it would use pre-built binaries for some common-case platforms) by using src/tools/build/options? Sounds like a SoC 2010 proposal to me :) Cheers, - -- Xin LI http://www.delphij.net/ FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! Live free or die -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJLo+/BAAoJEATO+BI/yjfB46EH/A9BkztAH5s6zxX+hbsfyQfr fMHPnx4KAPVy1ItWTWikUOvGw3eoSSfX1UH8hOXbzEZnwSWIJAPsLNWrOy7Usprx 4aSwvu3UsEsma5xBJeGjkhh+Bvird47T4OfEBMzsutvxEV/PJZvOE/TTpkIq+5sQ vlG+HPi2fuMm026zgfb52dtHoH+6KMPbYUU61Cp9XprgCif6eH1mNAWEPCxeoviE E71vOc1I8kS0xz5DvKsT2HG9Xcrrl8PMwboow62CBt/xZrwPYRYioh9a/hdZ6nzp fBb+ISxf3G7mSf7txpvdXJfPklqdL/8rxPrFyAQPqGWnBe5G/JoUT9yUbHyPjbQ= =PkRA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----