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sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] Smallest Source Mage

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  • From: Jon Svendsen <jon-sven AT frisurf.no>
  • To: "M.L." <m.l AT compaqnet.fr>
  • Cc: sm-discuss <sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Smallest Source Mage
  • Date: 28 Jul 2002 15:05:55 +0200

On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 12:27, M.L. wrote:
> what's so impossible about getting SMGL on a 486 ?

The CPU class is not the (main) problem. The problem is that his box had
very little memory and disk space. Compilation and subsequent
installation of software requires an amount of memory and disk space. If
you at some point during the process of attempting to compile and
install software _run out_ of memory and/or disk space, the compilation
will fail and your box is likely to crash.

> - 2.4 kernel may be compiled for i386 (and even ugly cyrix cpus....).

Yes, but first of all, it will take a Very Long Time (tm). Second, the
uncompressed kernel sources require a large portion of the total
available disk space he had. It's also fairly certain that compilation
of several of the files will require more memory than the 8mb he had
available, (included headers, parsing trees, generated assembly language
code. ls -lah /tmp during a compilation sometime) further increasing the
need for diskspace (swap and intermediate storage). Again, the class of
CPU used is not what will cause it to break, that will just make it take
incredibly long. Lack of RAM and disk space might, though.

> - glib is c...

And large. See above.

> - Even if the iso is compiled with pentium "instructions" it should be
> usable
> on any x86 compatible cpu... should'nt it ?

No. Each new family of CPUs introduce new instructions that weren't
present in older familys. If you compile binaries using these
instructions, and then try to run them on a system with a lower class
CPU, they will fail. Very few instructions were added between the 486
and the origial pentium though, which is probably why the ISO binaries
are runnable on a 486. Cast nasm and read it's docs for a (much) more
detailed reference on the x86 instruction set and which are available on
which family.

Jon





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