On 4 April 2012 11:11, Jakub Jelinek <ja...@redhat.com> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 04, 2012 at 09:18:59AM +1200, Michael Hope wrote: >> >> The subdirectories could be called fred and jim and it would still work. >> >> The only thing required is that this part of the naming scheme be >> >> agreed amongst the distros. >> >> >> >> This looks to me like it's turning into a bike-shed painting excerise >> >> between the distros out there. That's really sad. >> > >> > I don't think we ever even had the discussion: Debian invented their >> > Debian-internal scheme for managing multiple ABIs. They have in the past >> > used patched versions of gcc, as in the case of x86_64. >> >> (cc'ed cross-distro as the discussion is also going on there[1]. This >> patch continues that) >> >> I like the idea of incompatible binaries having different loaders. >> The path doesn't matter but the concept does. Like i686/x86_64, it >> gives distros the option to install different binaries alongside each >> other for compatibility, performance, or upgrade reasons. The >> compatibility cost is nice and low and lets Debian do some interesting >> cross development things. > > Does the dynamic linker itself contain any routines that depend on the > soft/hard ABI? That would quite surprise me, so I don't see the point of > having different dynamic linkers for those ABIs. One dynamic linker should > handle both just fine. > >> No one has released a hard float based distro yet. We have time to >> discuss and fix this so we don't get in the crazy situation where a >> third party binary only runs on some distros. > > Isn't e.g. Fedora 17/armv7hl a hard float based distro?
Yip, as is Ubuntu Precise, Debian unstable, and a skew of Gentoo. None have been released yet. Here's my understanding: Fedora 17: * ARM is a secondary architecture * Alpha 1 release is out * Has both a ARMv5 soft float and ARMv7 hard float build Ubuntu Precise: * ARM is a primary architecture * Beta 2 is out * ARMv7 hard float by default with ARMv7 softfp being community supported Debian: * ARM is a primary architecture * Has a ARMv4T soft float and in-development ARMv7 hard float openSUSE: * Kicked off at a hackfest in September 2011 * Have a ARMv5T soft float and ARMv7 hard float build Gentoo: * I'm unsure (help?) * The Gentoo manual suggests ARMv7 softfp is the default -- Michael
