On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 02:35:10PM +0000, Bruce O'Neel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks.  The problem with my fixes is that one builds two sets of
> binaries.
>
> In one case you build the normal binaries with inline f
> instructions.  In the other case you build them using -msoft-float
> to gcc and you have no f instructions.
>
> This allows netbsd to work well on lc040 macs, but, of course, is
> slower on macs with fpus.
> 
> I'd be happy if the changes were picked up and put in, but, I suspect,
> there needs to be some more discussion especially since my changes
> aren't really mac68k specific, but rather m68k specific, and the
> current users who have real FPUs don't want to give up any 
> performance given that 68k systems aren't that fast to begin with :-)


Hypothesis: the actual floating point instructions only appear in a
very few files (such as the main math library, "libm" or whatever it
is called).

If this is true (or can easily be made true), then the distribution
can come with a small list of files needing replacement on machines
with no FPU.  In the other direction, there could be a list of files
making a lot of calls to libm: users with FPUs might consider
recompiling to inline those calls, and users without FPUs might
consider avoiding those programs.


Requested experiment: compile the whole distribution on the same
system, with and without -msoftfloat.  Run diff on the whole thing, to
see which files vary.  Would you be willing to do this?

-- 
John