32-bit executables on aarch64?

[Mitchell Horne]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 1:03 PM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 9:18 AM Glen Barber <gjb at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 08:48:50PM -0300, Mitchell Horne wrote:
>> > On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 7:45 PM Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hi Mark,
>> > >
>> > > The intent is to test and develop software that only runs on
>> > > armv7 (specifically, Mecrisp Stellaris, a Forth system written
>> > > in ARM assembly).  This is best done natively.
>> > >
>> > > It's actually kinda annoying that no binary release tarballs
>> > > are provided for armv7, so setting up the jail involves an
>> > > annoying make world step.  For amd64 jails, I can just unpack
>> > > the binary tarballs and fix the configuration and I'm good to go.
>> > >
>> >
>> > This issue about lack of distribution sets for armv7 has come up a
>> > couple of times. It wouldn't take much to start producing them
>> > officially, so I plan to submit a patch for this once re@ is done with
>> > the 13.0 release.
>> >
>>
>> The problem is (was?) the armv6/armv7 bits used a specific KERNCONF for
>> each SoC, which made it somewhat impossible to guarantee that
>> distribution sets would "just work".  As I understand it now, this is no
>> longer an issue.
>>
>> However, the release/Makefile has no real knowledge of how to build
>> a release for armv7; the build is done using release.sh and a specific
>> configuration file for each board.
>>
>> If the previous comment regarding KERNCONF is indeed no longer an issue,
>> I will be happy to work with you on creating these distribution sets.
>
>
> KERNCONF was never an issue for userland, outside the boot loader bits. It mattered for a while because ubldr needed to know some stuff, but Ian fixed even that a long time ago (9.x or 10.x time frame, IIRC).
>
> We've moved to having GENERIC on armv7, and a special wart for RPIB for armv6. The former should be available as a generic set, just like we do for x86 where we bundle things with GENERIC. The RPIB stuff we can omit if need be.
>
> So the goal today is to have as generic an image as others. The IMAGE needs to be flavored with a specific u-boot to be bootable, but the binaries work with any armv7 kernel.
>
> I'm not entirely sure that we have to do this for 13.0 at the 13.0 release, but should for 13.1 for sure and ideally maybe a few days or weeks after 13.0 is released if possible.
>

I have the patch for this kicking around locally, so we can move on it
soon. If I had been a little faster it might have made 13.0, but it
seems better to wait at this point.

Mitchell

> Warner