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From: Andrew Gallatin <gallatin@cs.duke.edu>
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Date: Thu,  2 Nov 2000 10:13:49 -0500 (EST)
To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG, obrien@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: linux emulation
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Terry Lambert writes:
 > This broaches a subject I've been pondering for a bit now,
 > which is probably going to provoke some flamage and gnashing
 > of teeth.
 > 
 > It seems to me that FreeBSD itself is 4x slower than it needs
 > to be on Alpha.

Its not quite that bad.  The Compaq compilers distinguish themselves
on floating point; there's not a lot of floating point in the kernel
;)  

 > What are the chances of compiling FreeBSD itself with the
 > Compaq compilers?  This would seem to be the natural next
 > step, and it also seems to me that this could accelerate
 > the Alpha developement and increase general Alpha stability
 > immensely.
 > 

Even though I know it won't give a 4x speedup, I'd really like to
compile at least the kernel with the Compaq compilers.  The major
hurdle (for me at least) is that there is a large difference between
Compaq's syntax for in-line assembly and gcc's syntax.

As for math intensive stuff, as I pointed out a few months ago,
linking Compaq's math library with FreeBSD apps is dead simple.  I run 
my X server that way at home.  That seems to have increased its
stability somewhat.

Drew


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