Re: [9fans] 386

[Uriel <uriell@binarydream.org>]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 04:01:36PM -0400, jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> We're testing a rewrite of the x86 VM system and invlpg
Will that fix the issues with certain BIOS/mobos that wont boot with AGP
video cards? That would be very nice, I got a couple of such boards.

> I'd actually like to go further and only support processors
> that have the CPUID instruction (that includes the plain
> Pentium otherwise my home machine would need to be replaced).
That sounds reasonable. We have had people in #plan9 ask if they can't
run on a 486 or such, but we had to turn them down because they can't
run the installer on such system(not enough RAM).

As auth or fs servers it might make sense, but people that would use
them as such should have no problem getting an old/custom kernel built
for it.

This days it's not hard to find >P100 in junkyards if you look for them.

> We could provide instructions for what to do if someone
> desperately wanted to run the system on deprecated hardware,
> it's not hard but I feel it's not worth keeping the support
> in the main tree.
Agreed.

> Also, I can't find the old AT&T Safari and Gateway Nomad laptops I
> kept around for testing 386 and 486 compatibility so we've no way to
> test on those any more.
If you want I got an old 486 thinkpad lying around I never had time to
do anything with it, it's pretty cool, but probably shipping would be
more expensive than getting a new one from Ebay.

uriel