Re: How should/does Debian adapt to various hardware features?
On Feb 19, 6:00 am, Stefan Monnier <monn...@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> Since the MIPS port of Debian supposedly works on pretty much any MIPS
> machine, that means it both works on machines like the old SGIs with
> their massive floating-point engines, and on home routers where the CPU
> doesn't even have any hardware floating point support.
>
> How does Debian handle this? Do `mipsel' packages always try to use the
> FPU-less version of libraries (e.g. libvorbisidec), or always the
> FPU-full version, or is it chosen arbitrarily on a case by case basis?
>
> As a user, how can I make sure that I get the package version best
> adapted to my hardware platform?
>
I was under the impression that if a hardware FPU was not present the
software one was used, so apps don't need to know they can just use FP
and get the answers (wether it is done in hardware or software is not
something they need to know), been ages since I built a kernel :-)
I can also only assume that "libvorbisidec" is a specific library that
doesn't even attempt to use floating point.
Mark
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