On Oct 27, 2010, at 07:07, <[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote: > > 1.1 schedule for hardfp would be *very* challenging since we are still > working in order to get hardfp toolchain working. After that testing (incl. > performance testing) can be start. > >>> From: Arjan van de Ven [[email protected]] >>> Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 10:24 PM >> On 10/26/2010 12:18 PM, Quim Gil wrote: >> On Mon, 2010-10-25 at 23:52 +0200, ext Thiago Macieira wrote: >>> This is why I was wondering why we're not using hardfp *now* for 1.1.0. >>> >>> We shouldn't be breaking binary compatibility. >>> >>> We shouldn't be softp either. >>> Just reminding the obvious, but as for today there is no major MeeGo >>> products in the market, no AppUp for MeeGo, no Ovi for MeeGo, no Extras >>> for MeeGo. Even the MeeGo SDK itself is in its first iterations. >>> >> which will change once we release 1.1. > > I fully argee with Quim here, we have to act on this now, when the installed > base does not exist.
It does seem an advantage to act now in order to impose the least amount of disruption possible on the installed user base. Can we sketch out a roadmap? It seems evident that a MeeGo 1.1 hardfloat is difficult. How difficult will a 1.2 be? And if the toolchain is prepared for building a hardfloat 1.2, then we should build in parallel, as if this was a separate port, correct? (This is in fact what Debian does, their ARM hardfloat is essentially a separate port.) If this path is the appropriate path then we might need a target end of life of the softfloat ARM port, how do we identify that? >>> I see Arjan's point made from an architecture consistency point of view >>> - but from a marketing point of view 1.2 and following releases will be >>> a lot more used and scrutinized than 1.1.x releases. If this soft-hard >>> break is unavoidable then it seems that now it will create a lot less >>> hassle than in 6 months or later. >> >> based on the discussion here... the technology is at least several >> months away. There is work underway already. Already ~80% of the main Debian archive is being built against the hardfloat port. https://wiki.linaro.org/Linaro-arm-hardfloat >> >> and breaking compatibility in an upgrade is even worse than breaking it >> n a new release... >> .... really. Clearly MeeGo ought to be following your advice. But I think that you may be persuaded if we take into account; 1. There is a significant set of optimizations in the hardfloat ARM port [0.] 2. ARM softfloat will be less relevant once a hardfloat is present 3. Much of the ARM Linux community is already moving in this direction 0. http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1821 > We need to address those concerns by talking bout this openly. > According to best experts this will take some time, so unfortunatelly > it seems that we will have 2 ARM architecture builds towards 1.2, > and we can only make final judgement when we know that hardfp > will work as intended. This seems like a logical path forward. Yes there will be some difficulty, but this seems the only way to ensure that ARM devices are performant as soon as possible. Jeremiah
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