[CentOS-devel] Status of CentOS 5 for the i586?

Fri Jun 3 20:57:13 UTC 2011
Cody Jackson <supertanker13 at gmail.com>

Wow, I'm glad there's some interest in this.

To go into a bit more detail, I didn't need to patch anything
(although I'm looking into an unrelated issue for a soundblaster16 isa
driver that might need a patch--but one step at a time) and the spec
file had minimal changes. Which, come to think of it, would be a great
use for a patch. Sorry, haven't had my caffeine yet.

I did, as suggested by the Wiki page, copy the i686 config over the
i586 config and modify it for the i586, since apparently the i586
config that comes with the .src.rpm is not up to date and does not
build. At the moment I am rebuilding the kernel--it's still going, as
I can hear by the angry CPU fan on my build server--and writing down a
step-by-step outline of what I did, which I'll put on the Wiki after
my errands today.

It turns out I have another machine that can be used for testing: a
laptop with an AMD K6-II @ 400Mhz with 128MB RAM. In addition to this,
I also have about eight or nine various i586 CPUs I can plug into the
desktop--several Pentiums (90-133Mhz, if I recall right), a few more
AMD K6's, at least one IBM/Cryrix oddball. Unfortunately, I don't have
any Alpha machines on hand, but at least Nick does. :)

This is exciting! Unfortunately, I don't have the slightest clue what
needs to be done next, so I'm hoping that you guys will be willing to
point me in the next direction after I am sure these steps are
reproducible. Building the kernel in and of itself was a learning
exercise, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to learn more as I go along,
especially in the realm of rpm building; my sources/ directory is
already getting a bit messy. ;)

Also, when C6 comes out, I'll happily grab the .src.rpm and see if it
has a liking for the i586 arch as well.

Cheers,
Cody Jackson