Re: would anybody use binary packages for NetBSD/i386 10?

[Riccardo Mottola <riccardo.mottola%libero.it@localhost>]

Hi Greg

Greg Troxel wrote:
> In contemplating bulk builds and resources, I wonder if there are still
> people who:
>
>    are running NetBSD/i386 (as opposed to amd64)
>
>    are using the binary packges from quarterly branches on ftp.netbsd.org
>
>    are running NetBSD 10 already, or who intend to move to it soon or
>    after release

I still have several i386 systems and I intend to gradually switch some 
or all of them to NetBSD 10 and binary packages are welcome.

> My guess is that at this point, i386 use is limited to
>
>    a) old embedded-type systems (soekris)
>    b) systems that are running i386 because they were first installed many
>       years ago and haven't been converted to amd64 for no good reason or
>       for some odd special case odd reason
>    c) build systems to support category a/b systems, for testing or
>       building private binary package sets
>    d) retrocomputing

I am mostly in category a) or d). that is, pure 32bit systems of various 
age. What can run 64bit has been upgraded.
I add as a category also VM systems, since for most of them 32bit is 
enough, 64bit wll use more resources, but it is probably nowadays 
negligible for powerful hosts.

Most of my systems are laptops, some just "old but good" and some... 
more vintage (but heck, the older, the nicer the keyboard...)

If a system runs fine and is usable with 9.3, is there any good reason 
why it shouldn't run well with 10? Slower? More resource usage?
Except where support of certain devices broke, it NetBSD has a long 
history of upgrading well for me.
> and that the amount of use with ftp.n.o binary packages is extremely
> small.

With time, userland became very fat, so building a usable desktop 
environment with gui on a laptop is not desiderable, especially given 
RAM limitations of older laptops and ageing hard disks.  So while I did 
build everything from source 5 years ago, I now welcome binary 
packages.... especially for things like GCC, browsers.... heck even 
installing git and subversion is fat work.
It is no longer gcc 2.95 building cvs!

Riccardo