how long to keep support for gcc on x86?

[Peter Wemm]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:01 PM, Isaac (.ike) Levy
<ike at blackskyresearch.net> wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2013, at 7:58 PM, Peter Wemm wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Adrian Chadd <adrian at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>> ... ?
>>>
>>> As an embedded platform, I'd expect that people will want to support
>>> any feature which dramatically boosts performance whilst reducing CPU.
>>>
>>> Also, if Intel decide to keep trying to push low power x86 for mobile
>>> applications, rather than ARM, x86 may just make a resurgence in
>>> places you once thought were servers.
>>>
>>> 32 bit x86 isn't legacy and won't be for a long time to come.
>>
>> Our buildworld environment and embedded $everything isn't well known
>> for being embedded friendly.
>
> IMHO, I believe the buildworld environment is quite friendly, but I don't have anything except FreeBSD and OpenBSD to compare it to,
>
>> I'd wager that if somebody was trying to
>> use an i386 kernel in an embedded device where every last thing
>> counted, they'd be using an external toolchain targeted for their
>> platform and some very selective cross-building.
>
> I'll take your wager- I'm one of those guys, lots of embedded FreeBSD on tiny hardware- but I haven't been using any external toolchain or compiler.
>
> Your wager may still be rational, your case is plausable, but since 2004, I (and dozens of colleagues/friends/hackers) happily been compiling FreeBSD, using zero add-on tools. (I've used a lot of Soekris 4801 and 5501, and ALIX alix2d3 embedded boards).  Typical Kernel and world take approximately 18+ hours to build on a 4801, depending on the kernel conf.
>
> Beyond Soekris and PcEngines, there is a glut of relevant industrial single-board/embedded/funky hardware that is also 32 bit x86- some pretty amazing gear, at varying levels of cost.

Sure, but how many of these have the new AES-NI stuff?

And even if they did, the default 10.x compiler would support it.

-- 
Peter Wemm - peter at wemm.org; peter at FreeBSD.org; peter at yahoo-inc.com; KI6FJV
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