[CentOS] non PAE support

Thu Jul 28 02:09:34 UTC 2011
Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>

At Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:39:55 -0500 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Jul 27, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Always Learning wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 10:15 -0700, John R Pierce wrote:
> > 
> >> you can build the kernel RPM on any other similar environment, and ....  
> >> WHY ARE YOU/WE WASTING Y/OUR TIME ON A 6  YR OLD LAPTOP???   Get over 
> >> it.  Either run what works on it, or get suitable hardware to run what 
> >> you need.
> > 
> > Merely because something, or indeed someone, is old but still capable of
> > functioning should not mean it, or they, are discarded.
> > 
> > Last night I was watering the rear garden with attachments brought (I
> > recorded the date and price underneath) 22 years ago AND those spraying
> > attachments worked perfect. The 26" 66cm television is my bedroom is 14
> > years old. A six year old laptop, which works, is an interesting
> > candidate for exploring Centos and EVERYONE should be encouraged not to
> > throw away functioning items simply because they are 'old'.
> > 
> > When a Centos user wants to explore the richness of the many facilities
> > in Centos on an "old" laptop it shows the person has an enquiring mind.
> > Such people should be encouraged not ridiculed.
> 
> Yet another decision made by Intel at some point that comes back to haunting us.  Pentium Pro supports PAE.  Pentium II, Pentium III.  Pentium 4.  But not some early Pentium M's.  Then supported again.  (I haven't checked the Atom).  
> 
> I'm guessing that, even though the Pentium M was based on the Pentium III, someone thought that, since it was targeting laptops, who would ever need more than 4GB of RAM.  So why have include it.

There may likely have been issues with die size, power issues, etc. and
yes, given that putting more than 4G on laptops of that vintage would
been unlikely (again for power, motherboard chipset limitation, etc.),
it would be logical *at the time* to ditch 'unnecessary' support logic
on the processor in order to meet other requirements.

And yes, tossing *perfectly working* stuff into landfills is really
dumb.  Not an eco-friendly thing to do either.  The old machine might
not be useful for current mission critical production purposes, but
could be just fine as an experimental test bed or something else not so
demanding. 

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>                                                     

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Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
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