Re: Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) SMP build support
Hi Len,
>On 2/25/25, 4:57 AM, "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca <mailto:lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>> wrote:
>
>On Tue, Feb 25, 2025 at 02:49:32AM +0000, Kurt Stine wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> What would it take to have a debian build for the Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) CPU?
>>
>> Currently, due to overall Espresso weirdness, both GCC and glibc need to be patched for any applications to take advantage of all three cores. This means every application and library needs to be patched to be able to support smp on the Wii U. Debian powerpc will currently run on the Wii U, but due to the lack of patches, you are stuck with only a single core, and performance is extremely hampered by that. Adelie Linux currently has support for the Wii U, but it would be great to have a debian build.
>>
>> The Wii U has three cores and 2GB of RAM, so it's relatively powerful machine for the price (you can find them for around $25 online). I'm also able to provide access to multiple if needed.
>>
>> The smp patches are available here: https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches <https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches>
>>
>> Currently, there is not a patch for LLVM, so any applications that are built with clang will not run on an smp-patched build.
>>
>> Any input is appreciated!
>
>That looks like it would have a performance impact on all other users.
>Doing a cache flush on every atomic load and store?
>
>So I would think that means distributions would not want to include that
>in a normal build, so a custom build of anything you wanted to run would
>be needed. If you had a decently fast powerpc machine you could setup
>some scripts to rebuild all the packages. It would take a while depending
>on the speed of the build machine.
I agree, there's no reason to penalize normal ppc users with the patch. It's why I'm suggesting a separate port/repo with Espresso SMP support.
-- Kurt
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