Hi Len, >On 2/25/25, 4:57 AM, "Lennart Sorensen" <lsore...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca <mailto:lsore...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>> wrote: > >On Tue, Feb 25, 2025 at 02:49:32AM +0000, Kurt Stine wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> What would it take to have a debian build for the Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) >> CPU? >> >> Currently, due to overall Espresso weirdness, both GCC and glibc need to be >> patched for any applications to take advantage of all three cores. This >> means every application and library needs to be patched to be able to >> support smp on the Wii U. Debian powerpc will currently run on the Wii U, >> but due to the lack of patches, you are stuck with only a single core, and >> performance is extremely hampered by that. Adelie Linux currently has >> support for the Wii U, but it would be great to have a debian build. >> >> The Wii U has three cores and 2GB of RAM, so it's relatively powerful >> machine for the price (you can find them for around $25 online). I'm also >> able to provide access to multiple if needed. >> >> The smp patches are available here: >> https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches >> <https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches> >> >> Currently, there is not a patch for LLVM, so any applications that are built >> with clang will not run on an smp-patched build. >> >> Any input is appreciated! > >That looks like it would have a performance impact on all other users. >Doing a cache flush on every atomic load and store? > >So I would think that means distributions would not want to include that >in a normal build, so a custom build of anything you wanted to run would >be needed. If you had a decently fast powerpc machine you could setup >some scripts to rebuild all the packages. It would take a while depending >on the speed of the build machine.
I agree, there's no reason to penalize normal ppc users with the patch. It's why I'm suggesting a separate port/repo with Espresso SMP support. -- Kurt
