Linux for non-CMOV processors

[Richard Pieri]

On Feb 13, 2011, at 8:54 AM, edwardp-jjFNsPSvq+iXDw4h08c5KA at public.gmane.org wrote:
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Talk:Features/F12X86Support
> 
> Apparently, a decision was made to drop support for non-CMOV processors 
> in Fedora, Ubuntu as well as Mandriva.

After thinking about this for a while I'm'a say "good".  All three of these distributions target recent hardware, and the full desktops are pretty heavy compared to what counted as a "full desktop" 10 years ago.  K6/K6-2 are older than that.

If you really, really need to keep hardware that is more than a decade old running then use a source-based distribution like Gentoo, or set up a Debian or Fedora build chain targeting that hardware.  But realistically speaking, a $250 investment will get you modern hardware that runs faster, quieter, and with much lower power and cooling demands.  Assuming that you're running it 24x7 you'll make that back within 2 years from reduced electric bills.

--Rich P.