Proposed additions to release notes (was: Re: i686 ---> i586, i386 ---> i586, x86_64 stays the same)

[Christopher Beland]

Oops, this never made it into the release notes, so this is the next
best place I could find:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F11_bugs#Can.27t_find_.i686_kernel

-B

On Wed, 2009-04-15 at 00:59 -0400, Christopher Beland wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-04-15 at 00:10 -0400, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
> > I don't think there's been a kernel.i386 for a long time. Perhaps you
> > were thinking of kernel-headers.i386.
> 
> Ah, you're right - I wasn't reading carefully.  The notes should then
> read as follows:
> 
> ===Package rebuild===
> 
> All .i386 and .i486 packages have been rebuilt as .i586 (Pentium class).
> These designations represent the ''minimum'' supported architecture
> version; Fedora 11 is ''optimized'' for Pentium 4-compatible and later
> processors.  Fedora has never officially supported pre-Pentium
> architectures, and dropping any remaining backwards compatibility with
> these chips further improves performance and allows for code
> simplification (for example in glibc).
> 
> ===.i686 kernel changes===
> 
> The kernel.i686 RPM is no longer produced.  The following kernels are
> available instead:
> 
> * kernel.i586, for those requiring compatibility with a Pentium-class
> architecture or who do not have a PAE and NX capable processor.
> * kernel-PAE.i686, which requires a PAE and NX capable processor with
> Pentium PRO-class or later architecture.
> 
> After analyzing the differences between the i585 and i686 architectures,
> dropping the non-PAE i686 kernel is not expected to have a negative
> performance impact for those required to use the kernel.i586 package.
> The kernel-PAE.i686 RPM has additional capabilities, such as support for
> ExecShield security and the ability to address up to 64GB of RAM (the
> standard kernel can address only 4GB).  Note that the architecture
> designations in RPM names represent the ''minimum'' supported
> architecture version; Fedora 11 is ''optimized'' for Pentium
> 4-compatible and later processors.
> 
> Anaconda (the recommended install method) will automatically choose the
> best kernel for your hardware.
> 
> If you are using the "yum upgrade" method (not recommended), you may
> receive the kernel.i586 package even if your processor would support the
> kernel-PAE.i686 package. To determine this, run the command:
> 
> :grep 'flags.* pae' /proc/cpuinfo | grep -wq nx && echo 'kernel-PAE'
> 
> If you see "kernel-PAE" in the output, then your CPU is capable of using
> this package, and you can manually "yum install kernel-PAE".
> 
>