i386?

[Brooks Davis]

On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 09:50:00AM -0700, johnea wrote:
> 
>  Hi,
> 
>  Don't know if this will make it through your spam filter, or if you'll have 
>  the bandwidth to respond, but here goes.
> 
>  Why doesn't the FreeBSD project support a 32bit intel architecture newer 
>  than 386?

FreeBSD does support all x86 platforms newer than the 80386.  We do not
support the 80386 at all.  For historical reasons we call the platform
i386.  Changing the name would be difficult and largely pointless i386.

>  Pretty much every PC in operation today is at least 686/athalon.

In the desktop and server market, mostly.  In the embedded and
thin-client market, no.  There are plenty of 486 based platforms today
that are critical support including the lower end of the Soekris line.

>  Wouldn't the architechtural improvements to the x86 architecture over the 
>  last 10 years provide performance improvements to FreeBDSD?

They do and we take advantage of them.  We just don't gratuitously
exclude the possibility of running on older, but still viable platforms.

>  Just wondering, couldn't really find a forum to post such a question to.

You didn't try hard enough.  This thread comes up several times year.

-- Brooks
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