What real life samples are there of hardware that need i586 support? Is it just older hardware or is there newer hardware that would benefit from i586 support? Do other restrictions apply? Memory constraints, disk limitations, specific installation requirements, .....?
Hugo.
I think it is "newer" hardware also. Newer, as defined by still currently being actively sold (Geode).
The problem is that the information we require to make a decision is very hard to come by. No processor manufacture AFAIAW states "this is an i586/i686 class processor" the simply place the CPU on the market and let the community deal with it. Further to this the community then interprets information incorrectly, as in case with the CMOV instruction and the via EPIA board.
"The GNU compiler people have assumed that all 686's implement cmov's, so code compiled for the i686 architecture may not execute on the C3. Code generated by GCC does not check for these optional features as the intel documentation says you should"
http://radagast.bglug.ca/epia/epia_howto/x1099.html
Also some of Intel's own chips suffer from a problem with PAE instruction that certain distro's run into.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M#Dothan
but this is probably failing away from the issue of i586 to more issues with current i686.
I believe that there are now only 3 manufactures producing x86 chips, Intel, AMD and VIA.
Via chips up to and including the Ezra core have the CMOV issues. AMD Geode chips appear to be i586, some ultra portable/ low power laptop appear to be using this chip (OLPC among others) Intel is still selling i586 class ships for embedded.
There is no reason why most of these can't have decent RAM and or hard disks these are current and not recently out of production of which there may still be a still significant amount.
Overall not everyone can run i686 for whatever reason. The fact remains IMO that there is still a fair amount of need for an i586 image regardless of it it's for fall back issues or run natively I also believe that this isn't catered for by Centos 4 with support that run's out in ~4 years.
Manuel