Re: ARM port(s) BoF at DebConf
On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 22:08 +0200, Martin Guy wrote:
> On 19 July 2012 19:35, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:
> > armel
> > =====
> >
> > First released with Lenny. Soft-float EABI, Software floating point
> > assumed by default. v4t which also runs smaller-size thumb instruction
> > set. Targeting old hardware like openmoko. Discussed (again!) moving
> > forwards from v4. Declared that v5 is no faster than v4t, but there
> > are doubts elsewhere in the community. Later discussion suggests
> > moving to v5te would be worth it. Some good benchmarks would help -
> > volunteers welcome!
Upstreams don't seem to care about armv4t anymore.
http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=590
(reports in Debian are that this is not fixed, they are only testing
with qemu, which
cannot be used for this testing)
>
> Actually, supporting less machines is a move backward, not forward.
> The speed advantage for standard apps on v5+ machines is less than 1%,
> i.e. negligable.
>
> Of course, I have a vested interest in continued armv4t support, since
> my company has an armv4t board on the market that ships with Debian as
> its standard distribution. It would also impact Technologic Systems,
> Bluewater Systems and other small companies for similar reasons.
>
> Who is it that keeps bringing this up? I can see that ARM Ltd would
> want this, as it would eliminate Linux distro support for devices from
> which they no longer see any royalties., but I don't see any advantage
> for anyone else except chronic speed freaks who would kill other
> people's boards off to get a half of a percent faster for themselves.
>
> If somebody has a critical need to multiple two shorts with result as
> a long in a single instruction (which is what the E in 5TE brings),
> surely they can compile their own armel packages changing the cpu
> type, rather than making Debian do that and breaking other people's
> systems needlessly?
>
> Isn't Debian supposed to be the "Universal Operating System", where
> "Universal" includes running on as many different computers as
> possible?
> And the speed freaks can always build their own v5t and v5te
> repositories and use those to install from, leaving everybody happy.
>
> M
--
-Shawn Landden
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