On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 16:42 +0000, Wookey wrote: > On 2007-02-12 15:51 +0100, David Fokkema wrote: > > Hi group, > > > > Regarding floating point operations in ImageMagick / NetPBM there were > > suggestions to try out the EABI port. Right now, that seems a bit > > painful. However, on the Debian EABI port page in the wiki it says that > > the current way of working (oldabi) is about ten times slower than a > > program compiled with softfloat, if I understand correctly. I tried > > simply to use an -msoft-float compiler switch. That issued a 'missing > > -lfloat' error and that seems to be a very old library removed from > > debian. IEEE softfloat is software released a long time ago which only > > creates an object file and doesn't have an ARM template??? > > > > I'm really confused. > > > > Is it possible for me to just compile ImageMagick / NetPBM with some > > sort of softfloat support which doesn't generate hard illegal > > instruction faults and how could I do that? > > In a word: No. > > You can't (easily) mix soft-float compiled binaries with non-soft-float > compiled binaries on existing arm. (that's one major reason why > EABI/armel will imporve people's lives - this sort of thing becomes > possible).
Yes, I gathered something like that from the wiki. I just kinda hoped that for just one application it was possible to link it to something like -lsoftm instead of -lm. > The problem is that you can't link soft-float and hard-float binaries. > To built it with soft-float requires all the libraries to also be > soft-float so that implies a lot of rebuilding and static-linking. For complex applications or an entire OS, I figured that. Pity it doesn't work for less complex binaries. > Fixing netpbm to resize without doing FP (on arm) might not be a huge > job - I have no idea. It would certainly be appreciated by other > people using arm boxes in the way you are - soft-float is still very > slow in comparison to integer algorithms. That's an idea. The idea behind netpbm is to keep everything very simple. Maybe I can write a new pnmscale or modify it in some way. Actually, that sounds like a great idea! (hoping that it is doable in sane amounts of time, ;-) > FP is often used quite gratuitously by developers unfamiliar with the > idea that it might not be avilable. True. I don't ever give it a thought. Thanks! David -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
