Re: debian ppc64

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>]

> Correct me if I am wrong but I think the amd64 started as a pure64 and
> is now adding multiarch support. A pure ppc64 may be a god starting
> point.

ppc64 is a different story. In the case of amd64, the 64 bits mode does
provide significant improvements, like adding more registers etc...
which makes it generally useful to run pretty much the entire
environment in 64 bits mode. On the other hand, ppc64 is pretty much
just that: same core, same amount of registers, just things running in
64 bits mode, which tend to mean slightly larger code, and thus slightly
slower as well. Thus, it's been common so far to run ppc64 machines with
a mostly 32 bits distribution, plus biarch libraries & toolchain.

> Would it be worth if it could build in a pure64? If not, what do you
> think is a task worth doing?

I would not be very interested  in a pure 64 bits distro that don't even
haev the basic 32 bits stuff.

Ben.