Changing the default 32-bit x86 arch for Fedora 12

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Steven M. Parrish<smparrish at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I would instead propose that instead of killing off i586 that instead we make
> i686+SSE2 a new primary arch.  This will allow us to not only optimize Fedora
> for i686+SSE2 but still maintain a viable arch i586 for not only the XO-1.0
> but also for the many older but still usable machines that would otherwise be
> excluded from using Fedora.

IMO the 32bit atom is the only remaining major x86 (32bit) arch worth
optimizing for...  P4 stinks (and, in fact, the addition of CMOV will
very likely slow P4 down anyways)... Since ATOM is in-order it's a
pretty distinct optimization target compared to other modern 32bit
x86, though it doesn't seem like gcc is especially good at targeting
it yet.

Perhaps this particular proposal should just be left for another
release cycle or two, and see what interest is like then.  It would be
unfortunate to spawn a whole new architecture when it may turn out to
be uninteresting in a release or two.

(It would also be another incentive for people not to move their
x86_64 systems to an x86_64 build… which isn't something we should be
creating).