>> From: [email protected] [mailto:arm-
>> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Jon Masters
>> Sent: 06 May 2011 05:52
>> To: Matt Domsch
>> Cc: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [fedora-arm] armv7hl requirements
>> 
>> On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 22:36 -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
>> > On Wed, May 04, 2011 at 01:46:06PM -0500, Jon Masters wrote:
>> 
>> > > I'd like to kick off a discussion about flags for ARMv7. My proposal
>> > > here is that we treat v7hl as an entirely different architecture, and
>> > > don't try any multi-arch kind of hacks (there isn't the established
user
>> > > base for Fedora ARM to justify doing any of those things at the
moment).
>> > >
>> > > Things I think we should consider as a minimum:
>> > >
>> > > *). Little endian (obviously, but worth stating) (l)
>> > > *). Cortex-A8 or higher fully compliant core(s)
>> >
>> > Is there a measureable difference in code optimized for A8 vs A9 when
>> > running on A9?  If so, my inclination would be to build for the future
>> > - A9.  It's not like A9 hardware is hard to come by these days.
>> 
>> There's a difference in performance at the microarchitecture level
>> between Cortex A8/A9 and A15, but AFAIK not much between A8/A9. I spoke
>> with some friends from ARM the other evening about this and I'll
>> followup on the subject of tuning at the LDS event next week.
>> 
>> Anyway, for now I'm inclined to optimize for the future. We have a clean
>> slate, and you know I'm all about portability and compatibility, but not
>> if there's nothing already out there to worry about ;) We should make
>> sure whatever we do that we're sane on A15 when it comes out. And I am
>> inclined to realize the value of not harming support for Tegra, so that
>> (in my mind) seals the deal with regard to VFP-D16 vs. D32.

Using ARMv7 VFP-D16 as baseline would be best. In terms of platforms, there
are now enough A9 based platforms to use this as default build target with
Fedora.

>> 
>> > > *). ARM VFP3 hardware floating point (h)
>> > > *). ARM NEON Architecture
>> >
>> > If libraries using NEON can detect NEON-capable CPUs and switch to
>> > using those functions, all the better.  Unfortunately, not all
>> > A9 products include NEON, but then again, not all apps can make use of
>> > NEON SIMD instructions anyhow.
>> 
>> Yea. I like the SSE analogy. If you see my followup emails later in the
>> thread you'll see we decided that it wasn't worth requiring NEON and
>> instead use the hwcaps and similar mechanisms to pull in the libraries
>> as necessary. Worst case, we do a few optimized libraries one can
>> optionally install, I guess similar to how x86 did i686 glibc.

Using hwcaps mechanism should enable you to pull in the right optimized
libraries for NEON. 

Regards,

Philippe




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