[RULE] RULE minimum hw requirements

[M. Fioretti]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 09:21:12 AM +0100, C David Rigby (address@hidden) wrote:
> 
> A 386 with 12/16 MB of RAM was a personal computer 10 years ago.
> Today, it is equivalent to an "embedded system!" 

Absolutely, but see below.

>  So, I think it may be beneficial to consider diverging from
> standard FC to the extent that we will need to create our own
> kernels.  The tricky question is: do we break something critical
> relative to the FC distribution by doing so?

Almost surely yes. However, the RULE minimum target is a moving one,
and it is really pragmatic. 386, 12/16 are not mystical numbers to
defend blindly. They basically mean "what is the oldest, more limited
and crappiest hw *still* *working* and being donated that, with a
reasonable amount of effort, common sense and good will can be
reactivated, to delay expense and pollution?".

We want computers to do full time useful *work* as long as possible.
When they physically break, OK, let's replace them and not look back
with misty eyes. OK, in a few years, the 386s from the early 90s will
have probably solved the problem as stated above, but we'll be still
needed to make work those ancient P4, 3GHz desktop relics, with just
one GB of RAM, equivalent to the embedded system of tomorrow.

Man, am *I* mystical today or what? :-)

Ciao,
        Marco Fioretti

-- 
Marco Fioretti                 m.fioretti, at the server inwind.it
Red Hat for low memory         http://www.rule-project.org/en/

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention
from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end,
an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads
lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a
magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be,
have nothing important to communicate. -- H. D. Thoreau, 1854