On Thu, 3 Sep 2009, Matt Turner wrote:
I'd like to drop support for non-BWX Alphas (EV4 and original EV5)
from X. These machines can't load/store to single bytes and require
special sparse memory mappings.
The code required to select which functions (sparse, dense) is
convoluted, adds an extra layer of indirection, probably gets close
to
zero usage, and even less testing.
Does anyone use X on EV4 or EV5 (not EV56, EV56 has BWX)?
What's the problem with making it a build-time option? You may inline
the indirection based on a macro or suchlike and keep the more
complicated
code for a reference, even if you don't get any bug reports for a
while
(perhaps the code is perfect? ;) ). Linux is probably going to
support
pre-BWX machines as long as the Alpha port itself and you may have
troubles reaching all the interested users, especially as not everyone
makes frequent upgrades.