Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 17:02:14 +0100 From: Marius Strobl <marius@alchemy.franken.de> To: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> Cc: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>, sbruno@freebsd.org, freebsd-arch <freebsd-arch@freebsd.org>, sparc64@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Sparc64 doesn't care about you, and you shouldn't care about Sparc64 Message-ID: <20151108160214.GA31931@alchemy.franken.de> In-Reply-To: <93593.1446679609@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <563A5893.1030607@freebsd.org> <2AAC0EF3-528B-476F-BA9C-CDC3004465D0@bsdimp.com> <93593.1446679609@critter.freebsd.dk>
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On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 11:26:49PM +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > -------- > In message <2AAC0EF3-528B-476F-BA9C-CDC3004465D0@bsdimp.com>, Warner Losh write > s: > > >I concur. I think sparc64 has had a nice run, but it's time to > >recognize that the run is nearing its end. > > The main reason we wantd to have sparc64 in the fold was that it > was the opposite sex than i386, and thus helped find endianess bugs. > > The secondary reason was that it was 64 bit vs. i386's 32 bit. > Maybe that was the original motivation. However, in my perception, the main benefit of sparc64 for the entire tree over the last couple of years was to be a real magnet for alignment bugs in MI code, mainly network related things (with powerpc/powerpc64 being second place in that regard). It did that job so well that I repeatedly wondered myself: Who on earth actually is using arm and mips? I mean, sure, Juniper has its own IP stack but f. e. at the time alignment bugs in netgraph(4) got reported on sparc64, I really would have expected at least some people to use a MIPS-based router board for running a PPPoE session in order to terminate their DSL lines. That's even true as of today; f. e., there are still alignment bugs left to be fixed in dummynet(4) (which apparently has been written without platforms with strict alignment requirements in mind and, thus, is somewhat a PITA to properly fix). These bugs get reported for sparc64 from time to time but I've never seen a single one in the context of arm, mips or powerpc/powerpc64). Marius
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