32bit packages for x86_64 are generated from i586 packages which are meant to be run on ancient CPUs. But we could have better expectations for 32bit packages as they're installed on x86_64 system.

Building 32bit packages with better march/mtune could help with the performance of 32bit only packages like Steam.

  1. find better CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS for these packages
  2. identify packages which would benefit from such change
  3. create set of optimized packages which could be used for 32bit package generation

Looking for hackers with the skills:

i586 i686 community

This project is part of:

Hack Week 15

Activity

  • about 7 years ago: pluskalm liked this project.
  • about 7 years ago: sleep_walker added keyword "i586" to this project.
  • about 7 years ago: sleep_walker added keyword "i686" to this project.
  • about 7 years ago: sleep_walker added keyword "community" to this project.
  • about 7 years ago: sleep_walker originated this project.

  • Comments

    • sleep_walker
      about 7 years ago by sleep_walker | Reply

      Leap is easy - i586 is used only for 32bit packages, you can use that as playground.

      There are people using Tumbleweed on i586 so it may take some effort to convince community, show graphs, run benchmarks, etc.

    • matz2
      about 7 years ago by matz2 | Reply

      For compute intensive programs this might bring some performance, especially if activating SSE2 (which all x86_64 machines support by default). Of course it will limit the usefulness of the 32bit distro itself, but that's by design, and if backed by enough speedup might be acceptable. The difficult part will be to sensibly benchmark this for real apps, like steam (does it even have performance problems?).

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