Saw this
post from BarryK. Its a response that should help all PUP developers with an understanding.
My intention in this post, by me, is
NOT to position BarryK, at all; BUT it is to help anyone here to understand what current 32bit PUPs are designed for: 2 year old machines WITHOUT PAE.
His blog statement should help everyone with some key points to consider:
Point: Until last year's drops in cost of memory, most PUP machine users could NOT afford to upgrade. Now, with cost to upgrade being so low, most of us are doing memory upgrades, foregoing new purchases. And, we are seeing a much larger number of PC users with RAM exceeding 3/4GB.
Point: There is a lack of understanding of what PAE is and how Linux is designed to take advantage of it.
Point: Further, (and for good reason), there is a reluctance to take advantage of this "old" hardware built-in FEATURE because there is no predictor of what will occur with applications running in a "PAE aware" PUP.
Point: Barry's blog on this is the first "marker" for any PUP PC system postition statement I have seen. And, it is important, to me, as it targets its audience with a specific support position for mainline PUPs. (I have been asking for some sign like this since joining the forum...what PC configuration is PUP, WARY, etc. designed for?). So if PUPs don't run on or take advantage of newer hardware, its because of this design point.
BTW, please, everyone understand that 15 year old PAE is
NOT A NEW PC FEATURE. Things like SATA III or USB3 or 6-Core are NEW features.
Together, all of this should help us to understand these key points, until a new PC system position statement for PUPs is upgraded or emerges.
In the meantime, all of us, here, should understand the following:
- FATDOG 64bit PUP is "an expanded, out of mainline PUP design".
- Any new 64bit OS using PUP desktops are "an expanded, out of mainline PUP design".
- JamesBond "Proof of Concept WARY" is "an expanded, out of mainline PUP design".
- Any 32bit PUP forthcoming with PAE operational is "an expanded, out of mainline PUP design".
Even though PAE has been around since 1995 PentiumPro days, for both Intel and AMD, This, though, is NOT a new feature to the Linux kernel. But, the kernel must turn it on for Linux to use it. Any PAE aware kernel PUP is to be considered
"an expanded, out of mainline PUP design" until such time in the future that it may become available via PPM or Woof builds.
Most importantly: BarryK did NOT say to "don't build a PUP that does not contain PAE". In fact, it appears that he encourages PAE builds in his blog. And, now that this thread has shown the PUP community that LARGE RAM PCs could be fully utilized with the proper PUP kernel built, we should expect and see, sometime in the future, this
not being overlooked anymore. It should (and I hope will) become standard.
This has been one of the more exciting projects that I have worked on. Its has shown how this diverse community comes together to announce, understand, research, discuss, build a model and test. Lets not drop the ball and help Barry should he make a WARY kernel available to use. The Puppy community should be VERY PROUD of its ability to be responsive as has been demonstrated here.
Maybe some PUP member could start a thread, where the community can contribute to a PUP distro (WARY-4GB or WARY-for-all-PCs) with this thread's findings. Or maybe someone will present a guideline thread for 3.5GB+users who need to run a 32bit PUP. Or maybe a new "
PUP525 for all PCs, new and old". Or .... (I don't possess the talents to achieve this, but I will help wherever possible....testing perhaps, etc.)
Thanks again, everyone!