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

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 10:46:57AM -0700, Benjamin Franz wrote:
> 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.
>

PAE on 32bit also gives you NX security features..

-- Pasi