Re: MATH_EMULATE

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 01:09:21AM +0200, Heikki Suonsivu wrote:
> Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 05:31:50PM +0200, Heikki Suonsivu wrote:
> > (a) MATH_EMULATE is slow.
> > (b) Keeping all the overhead in userland is not as bad.
> 
> My point is avoiding dual ports.  If a specific application is time
> critical and too slow with MATH_EMULATE, one could always compile that
> specific package using soft-float, as that does not conflict with
> having MATH_EMULATE handling the default case?

I think it is easier to maintain a subport with the special toolchain
option of -msoft-float than it is to keep the in-kernel emulation usable
and even fix the existing issues.

> > (c) Serious, you are talking about hardware with limited computation
> > power -- binary compatibility is not such a big deal for that.
> 
> It is very convenient to install binary packages to slow computers
> instead of compiling it locally.  But this is variation of multiple
> ports theme :)

No, it isn't. You can still compile the packages on a different machine.
The userland remains i386 compatible, e.g. you can put the soft-float
userland into a subdirectory, chroot into that and compile on a fast
machine.

Joerg