On Tue, 2003-06-17 at 13:04, Helge Kreutzmann wrote: > Hello, > On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 11:10:01AM -0400, George France wrote: > > Everything built for alpha should use -mieee. It is not need on most other > > architrectures, but it is almost a requirement for the alpha architecture. > > Sure, since all other (popular) architectures implement the IEEE > standard. > > > This has been a subject of lengthy discussion on several mailing list. > > Well, which ones? I can't remember such discussions with the outcome > you mention on either debian alpha nor redhat-axp. > > One of the reasons for the speed of alpha is the ability to calculate > fast, eliminating often unnecessary checks. So why should we do away > this advantage by re-inserting those checks on a broad basis again > when compiling software?
I agree. For some software, it will be necessary to do this, but to intentionally hobble everything by default will hurt the performance of code which I rely on to be fast, such as ATLAS. If someone runs into SIGFPE, that person should file a bug against the package mentioning the -mieee fix described above. IMHO, this is not a good thing to force upon all of Debian on alpha. Zeen, -- -Adam P. GPG fingerprint: D54D 1AEE B11C CE9B A02B C5DD 526F 01E8 564E E4B6 Welcome to the best software in the world today cafe! http://lyre.mit.edu/~powell/The_Best_Stuff_In_The_World_Today_Cafe.ogg
