Re: Port Name: A Vote
Hi,
True, but Debian is striving to be LSB-compliant. Gentoo doesn't care
about LSB compliance. I'm not sure about Mandrake's intentions with
regard to the LSB; I believe they were taking Debian's lead, as > "amd64"
Mandrakelinux 9.0 (Corporate Server 2.1) used "x86_64" as the port
name. Next versions (9.2, 10.0) used "amd64" because that was AMD
expectations and (i) I hadn't started the 9.2 port yet and (ii) a
personal taste that "amd64" can be more optimally typed than "x86_64"
and was elegant. ;-)
At that time, none of other Linux distributor was willing to use
"amd64" as the port name probably fearing a lot of changes to packages
that will have to know about amd64-?-linux-gnu as configure strings. I
opted for "amd64" for above-mentioned reasons and as a proof-of-concept
that with proper helper scripts, it turns out to not be a problem.
Nowadays, choice is more complicated with EM64T platforms getting
around. Since both are ISA compatible (modulo 3dNow!), it would not
make sense to introduce an "em64t" port name, at first sight. Besides,
it's not fair to use "amd64" either in that case. Objectively, we would
be left with "x86_64" which exactly means "64-bit extended x86
architectures". After all, there were even LSB 1.x drafts mentioning
x86_64, though you can read AMD64 in 2.0 drafts instead.
IMHO, "x86_64" is a better name to fullfill expectations from both
parties. Desktop branding can then be performed at install time of the
distribution.
On the other hand, it has to be reminded that AMD did specify the
64-bit and resources extensions. As such, AMD64 could well define that
architecture name (and port name).
And here we go to "choice is complicated".
Or create a new name. e.g. "ex86" aka extended/extensible x86
architecture.
Bye,
Gwenolé.
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