On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Arnd Bergmann <a...@arndb.de> wrote: > On Wednesday 01 September 2010, Michael Hope wrote: > >> We will try to do no harm to other architectures or earlier ARM >> versions. The Thumb-2 routines may be applicable to the Cortex-M and >> Cortex-R series but we will not optimise for them. >> >> I'd like Linaro to state this explicitly in the next round. >> https://wiki.linaro.org/Linaro1011/TechnicalRequirements defines a >> 'Standard ARMv7 Configuration' but there's no higher level statement >> justifying it, no statement restricting us to it, and it includes ARM, >> Thumb-2, and Thumb-1. > > I think there are two aspects to this: > > On the one hand, we need to improve the code formost for new CPUs looking > forward, so the latest generation of shiny high-end hardware is what > matters the most and needs to be the primary target. Today's high end > is tomorrow's mainstream, so sooner or later everyone will benefit from > this. > > On the other hand, I think we need to be relevant and provide code that > everyone can use. The market today mainly consists of stuff that's not > the primary focus, like ARM926 or some non-MMU cores. Refusing to do a > simple fix because it's not relevant for Cortex-A8/A9 will just manage > to piss off people [1]. > > Obviously there has to be a middle ground. We're building the binary > packages for the configuration Dave mentioned (v7A/Neon), but IMHO > that shouldn't prevent anyone from rebuilding it with our tool chain > without having to make significant changes. If there are patches readily > available for stuff that's not our primary focus (thumb1, non-cortex v7A > CPUs, vfp without neon, ...), I'd say we should still keep them or > get them upstream.
As an embedded developer I'd like to see a standardized tool chain for building on most ARM architectures. There are at least two groups of users for this tool chain - ARM based PCs and embedded systems. There are dozens are various tool chain build systems for ARM. Every time I get a new embedded dev board I have to build yet another ARM tool chain to match what the accompanying software expects. This is a significant hurdle to new developers who may not have fast machines. Some of the people I've worked with needed 24hrs to build a tool chain. Let's get a standardized tool chain for the older ARM chips into a distribution to stop this needless proliferation. > > Arnd > > [1] http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_oct2006/ItsNotMyJob.htm > > _______________________________________________ > linaro-dev mailing list > linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org > http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev > -- Jon Smirl jonsm...@gmail.com _______________________________________________ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
