[Pkg-xen-devel] Re: Bug#390862: -bigmem version of xen kernels is really needed

[Pasi Kärkkäinen]

On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 02:18:01PM +0200, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 12:54:31PM +0300, Nikita V. Youshchenko wrote:
> > 
> > What about idea not to *add* pae versions of xen kernels, but to *replace* 
> > non-pae versions with pae versions?
> > 
> > Rationale:
> > 
> > - not increase in archive size or linux-2.6 package build time,
> > 
> > - this will improve compatimility with other distros (consider scenario 
> > when running FC or RHEL in domU; these distros do ship only pae xen 
> > kernels, according to 
> > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-xen-devel/2006-December/000998.html)
> >
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraXenQuickstartFC6
> 
> "Any x86_64, or ia64 CPU is supported for running para-virtualized guests.
> To run i386 guests requires a CPU with the PAE extension."
> 
> So FC6 is PAE only, and latest update to FC5 also switched to PAE xen
> kernel.
> 
> RHEL5 will be PAE only too.
> 
> I don't know what Suse uses..
> 

https://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv5-beta-list/2006-December/msg00068.html

"the decision to only support PAE capable hosts was made at the end of the
FC5 cycle. The majority (if not all)  of server in customer
datacenters/environments are PAE capable today and the only edge case for
non-PAE support would have been "older" laptops which do not yet have PAE
capable processors.  It also would have been an additional burden for QA/QE
to test/certify older non-PAE capable servers.  As the use case for Xen is
certainly geared towards servers and not laptops this made a lot of sense."

-- Pasi
       
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