Subject: building libm with FPU support
To: None <port-i386@netbsd.org>
From: Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 08/09/1998 19:56:35
As most of you already know, on the i386 platform, we haven't been
building libm with the FPU instruction support by default because our
FPU emulation software isn't up to the task.

dan@geek.com.au just donated a tiny patch, so from now on, if you set
I387_LIBM=yes in your /etc/mk.conf, you will build a libm that does
FPU support. Unfortunately, this means static code linked on your
machine won't run on old i386 boxes.

If anyone out there who is sufficiently motivated would like to either 
improve our FPU emulation, find FPU emulation that isn't encumbered
(the only good FPU emulation I've found is GPL'ed (Linux) or not
available in source (the objects donated by Intel for Mach)), or
otherwise find a way to fix this problem once and for all so that
modern processor users do not suffer, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

Perry