Switching Fedora to pae kernel by default?

[Eric Paris]

On Mon, 2009-01-19 at 19:31 +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
> Kyle McMartin wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 11:23:26AM -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> >   
> >> Dave Jones (davej at redhat.com) said: 
> >>     
> >>> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 03:49:20PM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
> >>>  > This probably comes up once in a while, thought I'd raise it again.
> >>>  > 
> >>>  > I'd like to suggest switching the default kernel to -PAE on machines 
> >>>  > that support it, for the following reasons:
> >>>  > 
> >>>  > - many machines have 4GB+ these days, even desktops
> >>>  > - NX is only available with -PAE, improves security
> >>>  > - kvm is significantly faster on AMD when PAE is selected (since we 
> >>>  > don't support NPT on non-PAE)
> >>>
> >>> What's needed to set this by default is changes in anaconda.
> >>> They have their own list at anaconda-list at redhat.com
> >>>       
> > Unless we keep the non-PAE i586 kernel around as a fallback, we're not
> > going to be able to boot on a whole raft of crappy i386 chips (original
> > Pentium M most notably...)
> 
> I'm not suggesting dropping non-PAE.  Simply defaulting to PAE where 
> possible.
> 
> Are Pentium Ms (really the memory that comes with them) actually capable 
> of running recent Fedoras?  I'm talking desktop, not 
> I'm-using-my-laptop-as-a-firewall-just-because-I-can.

I've got a P3 (Coppermine) with 256M memory running F10.  My significant
other took it with her to Antarctica (Well F9 has been to Antarctica but
it'll be F10 in Antarctica next month).  You can only run one app at a
time and have to be patient, but it's perfectly usable (and noone cares
if this laptop is lost, stolen or destroyed [aside from her being pissed
she lost all her research data]).  I wouldn't/couldn't to use it as a
daily machine, so while I'm in favor of -PAE default, F10 is "usable" on
such small machines.  I don't care if old machines need some bit
twiddling to get to work, but we aren't dead yet   :)

-Eric