From owner-freebsd-current Mon Jul 12 14:56: 2 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from janus.syracuse.net (janus.syracuse.net [205.232.47.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD29B14E48 for ; Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:56:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from green@FreeBSD.org) Received: from localhost (green@localhost) by janus.syracuse.net (8.9.2/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA53791; Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:55:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: janus.syracuse.net: green owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:55:37 -0400 (EDT) From: "Brian F. Feldman" X-Sender: green@janus.syracuse.net To: Alex Zepeda Cc: Garrett Wollman , Martin Cracauer , freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Using float emulator on a system with FPU? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Alex Zepeda wrote: > On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Brian F. Feldman wrote: > > > Why shouldn't we? Noone uses machines without FPUs anymore. What > > non-ancient CPU doesn't have an FPU? And we're talking about the i386 > > family here... > > I've noticed recently, more and more, Linux is moving into the embedded > market quite nicely, and being used on smaller and smaller systems. > FreeBSD OTOH has been focusing (albeit not too successfully) on the higher > end market. > > With my recent addition of an 040 powered Mac that I plan to put NetBSD > on, this really irks me. I'd love to put some (read: a significant) > amount of time getting FreeBSD up and running on this, but there seems to > be a lot of resistance to using FreeBSD on smaller/older machines. It > almost seems like the requirement is Pentium III, Alpha or bust. > > And yes, this machine does have an FPU, but there are plenty of *newer* > systems without FPUs For instance, doesn't the StrongArm lack an FPU? What > about embedded systems? A 486SX would draw a whole lot less power than a > Pentium. And it's certainly not like emulating an FPU is an impossible > task like say on some LC040s... Compare the 486SX to a 486DX, not a pentium. > > - alex > > Brian Fundakowski Feldman _ __ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ green@FreeBSD.org _ __ ___ | _ ) __| \ FreeBSD: The Power to Serve! _ __ | _ \._ \ |) | http://www.FreeBSD.org/ _ |___/___/___/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message