Re: Architecture baseline for Forky

[Sicelo <absicsz@gmail.com>]

Hi

On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:52:00PM +0000, John Klos wrote:
> What is the purpose of this? Is it to, perhaps, reduce work? If so, what
> work would that be, specifically?
> 
> Is it to give better performance because of greater compiler optimization
> potential? If so, has anyone done tests that show the advantages of such
> optimizations? If I recall correctly, at least for amd64, optimizing for
> newer "v" levels didn't offer measurably meaningful advantages. [1]
> 
> Is it to reduce the load on some people or some group or groups of people
> who'd otherwise need to maintain code supporting older architecture
> variants? If so, who are these people / groups, and what work would be
> saved?
> 
> Is it a desire for cleanliness, and removing older targets makes things more
> clean?
> 
> In other words, what're the real world advantages to these changes, and have
> they been measured and shown to outweigh the real world disadvantages? If
> so, where can we find those evaluations?
> 
> Thanks very much,
> John Klos

I totally agree with John and would add:

* is there something that the rest of us can do to help?

I am particularly interested in keeping armhf (Cortex-A8 specifically)
supported, and while it is not much, I have been contributing to the
linux kernel in connection with these machines, and I am looking for
ways to contribute more in Debian too.

Regards
Sicelo A. Mhlongo