[fedora-arm] arm software floating point support going forward

[Derek Atkins]

Jon,

Thanks for the reply.  I certainly don't have the hardware to host a v5
koji.  All I own are 2 Sheevas and 2 Gurus (and not even the "Server
Plus" models).  Moreover, one of my Sheevas is in "critical" production
on my network so I can't really pull it away to perform other duties.

I was actually looking at a Cubieboard to get some newer, more powerful
hardware, because the Guru is way too low powered to run my MySQL
instance.  I may even find that the Cubie is too low-powered, but
obviously cannot test that until I have one or have access to one.
Regardless, right now I don't have the budget to acquire new hardware,
which is why I'd like to continue using what I already own.

Not being intimately familiar with the various changes in the hardware I
guess I just don't understand why we need so many target-specific
distributions?  I thought the only issue was the floating point ABI
issue, which would lead me to believe that we only would need two, FP
and non-FP?  Is there really a significant speed improvement with
e.g. v7 or v8 when compiled specifically vs. running e.g. v6 on a v7 or
v8?  ISTR that measurements showed some but relatively insignificant
speed differences, so why not just stay at the lowest level to support
more hardware?

Thanks,

-derek

Jon Masters <jcm at redhat.com> writes:

> Derek,
>
> It is less "powers that be" than a collaborative effort/decision. We do not have resources to justify keeping v5 alive but you are free to coordinate with others and pick it up, in the same way that Seneca are to own v6 support (maybe Seneca can even help with build system setup if you ask them). Do you have any interest in driving that?
>
> You will find the ominous powers that be are in fact a bunch of us doing the work who are overloaded enough to keep just v7 and v8 on track :) For those who are devastated and have no v7 hardware, ping me off list and maybe I can look into getting a couple of v7 boards out there.
>
> Jon.
> -- 
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse brevity.
>
> Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:
>
> Quentin Armitage <quentin at armitage.org.uk> writes:
>
>>     since there has been no major objection i will disable building
>>     armv5tel rpms in rawhide before the mass rebuild.
>>     
>>     Dennis
>>     
>> I guess it's too late now, but I got a few days behind on my list emails. I
>> use 2 * Sheevaplugs and 2 * Dreamplugs with Fedora, and would be very
>> disappointed to see support for them being dropped from Fedora. For me, I
>> still see quite a lifetime in them for what they are doing.
>
> I've mentioned multiple times my hope to keep kirkwood support in
> Fedora, but alas it feels like the powers that be just don't care about
> us *plug users.  :(   If I want to continue using my plugs I guess I'll
> have to learn Debuntu.  :(
>
>> Quentin Armitage
>
> -derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available