[rhelv6-beta-list] The minimum hardware requirement to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a 32-bit, x86 CPU with PAE support.

[Benjamin Franz]

On 06/16/2010 10:19 AM, Grant Williamson wrote:
> I am kind of curious on why EL6 32 bit is PAE only. Can anyone shed 
> any light on this, thanks.
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=589332
>
>

If I had to speculate, its because supporting code to handle the edge 
case of someone running a 32 bit machine in 2010 that doesn't even 
support PAE was considered  too much of a small-impact use case for 
Redhat to spend money on. They would never gain/keep enough customers 
over it to pay for the investment required to support it for the next 
several years.

I mean, really? The original reporter is running a *five year old 
laptop*. That is quite old for a laptop. The *cheapest* laptop I found 
on Newegg has a 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 250GB of 7200 RPM disk all 
for about $350 US. Far more than enough hardware to run a spanking new OS.

-- 
Benjamin Franz