[CentOS] CentOs 7 i386 & PAE Kernel

Thu Mar 7 14:35:05 UTC 2019
Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org>

On 3/6/19 9:49 AM, Akemi Yagi wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 7:23 AM Mike McTernan (wavemobile)
> <mike.mcternan at wavemobile.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 3/6/19 1:28 PM,  Johnny Hughes wrote:
>>> On 3/6/19 6:26 AM, Mike McTernan (wavemobile) wrote:
>>>> On 3/5/19 5:48 PM,  Johnny Hughes wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> Last question, if I may - Is there any specific reason why an i686 PAE
>>>> kernel built from the main RHEL sources isn't in the AltArch i386 os- repo?
>>>>
>>>> Notably CentOS 6 provided both non-PAE and PAE 32-bit kernels, and
>>>> it's that step from CentOS 6 32-bit PAE onto CentOS 7 32-bit which
>>>> made me stumble, but okay now.
>>>
>>> The only reason is .. it is not included in the mainline RHEL 7 kernel source
>>> code.
>>
>> Ah - I guess since mainline RHEL 7 is only 64-bit on x86 now, it doesn't have to worry about PAE vs non-PAE kernels.
>>
>> ...
>>> I have no objections trying to make PAE work with that kernel .. Patches
>>> accepted :D
>>>
>>> https://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=6828
>>
>> So with what I know now (thank you!) I recon the mainline 4.14 is probably a better tested path for a 32-bit x86 PAE kernel, rather than starting at RHEL 7.  And since you are already building that kernel it's good news all round :-)
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>>
>> Mike
> 
> Going for the 4.14 kernel is absolutely a better choice. The i686 plus
> kernel is just lucky to be existing. It would not have been possible
> to maintain it without great support from people like Pablo and @kabe.
> We initially got the 32-bit version from Springdale (formerly Puias).
> Then they stopped building at some point. Building it becomes harder
> and harder with each release, it seems. So, there is no guarantee that
> there is another update to the i686 plus kernel.
> 
> Akemi

Just a follow on to this conversation .. we have, on a couple of
occasions, almost shifted i386 to an upstream LTS kernel due to the
inability to get the RHEL 7 source to build for i386.

Kabe and Pablo have thus far been able to help Akemi and I get it to
build, but in the future as the RHEL 7 kernel keeps getting harder to
maintain for i386 (they don't check all their backports work on i386 ..
only the arches they maintain), we may rebase the kernel on i386 to
whichever one we are using on armhfp generic at the time.


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