Re: changing the default i386 compilation target? sse2?

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Fri, Apr 04, 2025 at 02:05:33PM +0000, nia wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 04, 2025 at 12:07:08PM +0200, Hans Rosenfeld wrote:
> > Given that amd64 hit the market 22 years ago, I really wonder what
> > purpose the i386 port still serves other than supporting vintage
> > computers.
> 
> i586 hardware is still manufactured and is widespread in industrial
> computers and in kiosk-type machines.

Indeed.

There is another usage of i386 setups running as (smallish) virtual machines
on modern hardware, where i386 uses less resources and for this kind of
setups you won't typically profit from the better code generated for 64bit.

This now is becoming a bit less popular as it requires e.g. an additional
shim with Xen. In this case the CPUs would most likely have all modern
SIMD extensions.

Martin