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Thomas Gleixner described an effort to create a unified x86 architecture tree, "the core idea behind our project is simple to describe: we introduce a new arch/x86/ and include/asm-x86/ file hierarchy that includes all the existing 32-bit and 64-bit x86 code and allows the building of either a 32-bit (i386) kernel or a 64-bit (x86_64) kernel." Andi Kleen expressed some concern, "I think it's a bad idea because it means we can never get rid of any old junk. IMNSHO arch/x86_64 is significantly cleaner and simpler in many ways than arch/i386 and I would like to preserve that. Also in general arch/x86_64 is much easier to hack than arch/i386 because it's easier to regression test and in general has to care about much less junk. And I don't know of any way to ever fix that for i386 besides splitting the old stuff off completely."
Linus used an 80386 to develop the Linux kernel. As the oldest supported architecture, the i386-specific code will certainly have more useless stuff in it than the x86_64-specific code. Yes, the x86_64 stuff benefits from the experience of porting to new architectures, but it also has less legacy to support.
Andi's wishes may be sound, but I think his reasoning behind them is incomplete.
On the upside though there would be no need to differentiate the installs. If your running x32 or x64 old iron or new there would be no need to differentiate anything any longer, software would just work.
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Andi's wishes may be sound, but I think his reasoning behind them is incomplete.