[01:48] <hyperair> there seems to be interest in getting a nonpae kernel build into universe. does anyone have any objections to that?
[02:49] <xnox> hyperair: there is a lot of interest to gather a whitelist of actually pae capable, but not-declared as such, cpu IDS. Writing a patch like that & upstreaming would be great as it will unable stock kernels to be executed on those kernels.
[02:50] <hyperair> s/unable/enable?
[02:50] <xnox> yes =)
[02:50] <hyperair> i see.
[02:50] <hyperair> xnox: is there any effort ongoing to do that already?
[02:51] <xnox> hyperair: i haven't actually seen requests for nonpae CPU support, it's just there are a few popular CPUs that support it, but don't have it declared in the flags.
[02:51] <xnox> hyperair: there is a lot of CPU ids pasted to the bug report.
[02:51] <hyperair> well a certain phillw has been raising hell over it.
[02:51] <hyperair> nonpae cpu support, that is
[02:51] <hyperair> he'd like nonpae support in the next lubuntu lts if possible
[02:51] <xnox> hyperair: but no actual kernel hackers / or anybody else writting a patch to the PAE check to be ignored on whitelisted CPUids.
[02:52] <hyperair> but that's the fakePAE hack right?
[02:52] <hyperair> what about machines that really don't support PAE?
[02:53] <xnox> hyperair: in my experience, phillw has only one critically setting for all issues =)
[02:53] <hyperair> only phillw?
[02:53] <hyperair> i thought he was lobbying on behalf of a bunch of other people
[02:54] <xnox> hyperair: he really does not....
[02:54]  * hyperair sighs
[02:55] <xnox> hyperair: nonpae kernels are really acient e.g. pre-1995, ubuntu only started in 2004. I see no reason to support CPUs from 1994, because really, they are worthless and use more power to run, then the cost to upgrade.
[02:56] <xnox> hyperair: the whitelist thing should happen, imho. But those who want/need it should implement it. E.g. Lubuntu developers.
[02:57] <hyperair> xnox: power might actually be free in some old rental apartments in some parts of the world. ;-)
[02:58] <xnox> hyperair: but internet is not free in those appartments to download lubuntu 14.04 on release day, when it really does not ship for free to old rental apartments in some parts of the world ;-)
[02:58] <hyperair> eh no
[02:58] <hyperair> in singapore some apartments have fixed-rate utility charges included in the rental
[02:58] <hyperair> even today.
[02:59] <xnox> hyperair: you can argue there are apartments with both free internet and power, but then i'd say that apartment is unlikely to have nonpae CPUs.
[02:59] <xnox> hyperair: fixed-rate is not free.
[02:59] <hyperair> not free, but still unaffected by the amount of electricity you use
[02:59] <hyperair> and if an old machine lands on you and you want to run it as a headless tiny server, it might actually be a good idea.
[03:00] <hyperair> but eh, 1995... i don't really care about such old machines myself.
[03:00] <xnox> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_Pro is the first one to support PAE. Max. CPU clock rate	150 MHz to 200 MHz
[03:00] <hyperair> ._.
[03:00] <xnox> I can emulate that in qemu, probably at full speed, and check if lubuntu even boots on that in less than 30minutes =)
[03:00] <hyperair> ugh
[03:09] <hyperair> xnox: wiki says earlier variants of the pentium M didn't support PAE.
[03:09] <hyperair> or rather, it was disabled
[03:09] <hyperair> was there some way to enable it on those?
[03:18] <hyperair> xnox: looks like pentium 2 doesn't have PAE support.
[05:35] <JanC> xnox: I could boot Ubuntu 4.10 with a full GNOME desktop on a Pentium MMX laptop with 64 MiB RAM and a 3200rpm HDD in way less than 30 minutes...  ;-)
[05:37] <JanC> using CRUX + XFCE around the same time, it booted in < 1 min even
[05:38] <JanC> that Pentium MMX was 166 MHz BTW