From nobody Tue Feb 10 05:01:46 2026 X-Original-To: arch@mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4f98Yg43PXz6RRd5 for ; Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:01:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from adrian.chadd@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qt1-f172.google.com (mail-qt1-f172.google.com [209.85.160.172]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (128/128 bits) key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256 client-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits) client-digest SHA256) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "WR4" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4f98Yg26myz3fg6 for ; Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:01:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from adrian.chadd@gmail.com) Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; none Received: by mail-qt1-f172.google.com with SMTP id d75a77b69052e-50146483bf9so56004181cf.3 for ; Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:01:59 -0800 (PST) ARC-Seal: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; t=1770699718; cv=none; d=google.com; s=arc-20240605; b=kCOKdqMd77A3LwTKUlI60aPSGs03C4UrElkPmzJ5gRS8FpLCioUGsiTMWTB37ddFj5 8g3yzmRhWhZ9iqjKTQREV+vHwglYy1urzTbjGK6KE1XPc/7g8B/xMEpnAdrTRGkAzqpi ssRtQ80JkG+WMzM2i/IjovYc4jcLdYm7Auh83nItDKFOWnu566jC9OzNjug4GSkctPyI 45RkOGvFf0vkXJp+9yb37IioMTFAI2/jfxx02V2tqIiUPelKr4nCA3eHogOeFCfIWeef Ho1tb/aPGoVmlAzwiRE0D32IBQ54bfthhgxXsqB5EDj68UIX/Bun32vc7zjoGUiyHfa8 7GnA== ARC-Message-Signature: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=google.com; s=arc-20240605; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version; bh=f23Z00c05ycShEVkMiCpGwIJb3htI/dC5NbmCZXYh48=; fh=2rpWtu7dXI+TPcXvm+qPVyDG0ghq6LhQDXdEqNUF9BA=; b=I2hscEc23ApoNuki/IIc0kJymjdXb3LV87hjo5KSIXnK0j2qLMwFOBgZDNBAh0+vcw UHPbB0wuIxTTkP5S5nJBvRcmxkuuE5HU2XB8k58G6N4eqhKJ2SK/nUXzwOsvBmyjC15g wl5w0N1gkv7OTNLu4Z7WmbD5tbtt1Fmn+KNbpWUrEW3Y6blzlZaToRbF/OMyB5k+fG1U RhpEjaYh/AjLs/X5ZlAhF/PfRqqP58WWBZH0KaVdxea5XsSGGLq/Azef3Hh5rWq2CxZ2 MVtqLhnHNAdHbSw2JYr7IeTY+TzvtEacQ594TbnPXg0mon2Q3rbz9vxHhCe+3JhcWTlt /4Mg==; darn=freebsd.org ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; mx.google.com; arc=none X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1770699718; x=1771304518; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:x-gm-gg:x-gm-message-state:from :to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=f23Z00c05ycShEVkMiCpGwIJb3htI/dC5NbmCZXYh48=; b=RuaqRcmhkSeD2NHm2RbB5NQ0WQaoY+rkqSoCdPYPFhhcVIiPU1+JmQYCglXEYh7gHe p9YKzUglQQlIe47++0fvFqNGFnB0vRtMP5f0hGOrQqUbsTljXa+/e5XKzxdzGkRo7ooy FsoaJWu0mhyVqPpsijKhYoqhxVRIF7eM6M4Up7ASAcq2QHmQg830eO70ZbEzWbnzSOZ7 /MwTvT4xIOp/AOwF/9qcJYPMAqLGf7d+yks5dH7CL4J+TX3/aMPAZTOCH4CoLiahyEyr PtI2OetvIxeCnPQ/7bnAJXcA6qz1nQJXVYRNmXRok80KxXUDWEG/1NGqYfvHTYtIjslk jiZg== X-Forwarded-Encrypted: i=1; AJvYcCVU9jnLfW+7g/3GFdm3CyDbyS6mwZD1SJI8Wk0lY76cFXxjsbMOk306FocF/dvls6rQklZ+@freebsd.org X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0YxWmSEH77UlLY1kSF1gugz234GEbthAFafXti3Iuq9Opz7JTQ1p fO4fR4k5J5AAUMVu2eXSek0TQJfhZfJBFKfw18j7LQuMaT4yaZCQwX8t12OKJmvtqnRjB5Xbqnd fAjdWvH1i+2YqxDZ0FkmPI51rlDjZ7i+iaA== X-Gm-Gg: AZuq6aImY1uYqvEilWsCHbI96ZBGg3mEfWfk/CorOkrxCCxrJDSHJpR4rcmbXVV/xF9 pYOCq9wQO99uHZAraLgBe6aGCdGalK1AV9VfV5ouWMcv0eDNrS3mC6zj7/x6vNotXEpYWa3v2N/ wqB4E4KNIXsGkDboKKub6F5xa3eQZaOZrMHEw4CYO68d+eo4pOPK8XRIBHPF0W4ob25Kt1piX7c gaQ27P/Pkhe9OR1fnqoL6sL/QLhElY4latK7ixmH8x+9dcHq6xyigM+NsZoj5iLFw4ahOQsCJxZ fRzyil+x/24xirucV6w3siQF6uevwJbrIPEAMZVy1MzuwvbkWuI9+SC01h4GitJtjzkw+OWO1QG fPpZXv8IV1ZJG1du2//AWLpioteAHrb6cFS5Nr6mRVtnMVel6Wc2ULNe3wQ== X-Received: by 2002:ac8:5f8a:0:b0:4f4:f834:44ed with SMTP id d75a77b69052e-5063999a503mr187397221cf.64.1770699718055; Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:01:58 -0800 (PST) List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Archive: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-arch List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Adrian Chadd Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2026 21:01:46 -0800 X-Gm-Features: AZwV_QiJSdj_4_qC-Op3VMl-H6J5pEL9VTMN67vJta40W446VlFk-oITNHYzNcA Message-ID: Subject: Re: What's the plan for powerpc64 in FreeBSD 16 To: Minsoo Choo Cc: Warner Losh , "freebsd-arch@freebsd.org" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Rspamd-Pre-Result: action=no action; module=replies; Message is reply to one we originated X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-4.00 / 15.00]; REPLY(-4.00)[]; TAGGED_FROM(0.00)[]; ASN(0.00)[asn:15169, ipnet:209.85.128.0/17, country:US] X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4f98Yg26myz3fg6 X-Spamd-Bar: ---- On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 at 16:45, Minsoo Choo wrote: > > I've been working on LLDB for several weeks now. One thing I learned: we = should never expect improvement in ppc64be support for LLVM (at least in LL= DB). ppc64be POSIX userland debugging on LLDB is incomplete=E2=80=94it's mi= ssing files that even riscv and loongarch implement and VSX registers are c= ompletely absent in some cases while ppc64le debugging is still actively de= veloped and maintained. Debugging is one of the most crucial component in s= oftware development while LLVM is FreeBSD's default toolchain. In this cont= ext, I don't see any reason to keep support ppc64be. I was going to impleme= nt LLDB userland and kernel debugging support for all supported architectur= es from FreeBSD 14, but after I examined the current status of ppc64be in L= LDB, I decided to abandon it. > > And this is industry trend. The only ppc manufacturer for POSIX platforms= , IBM, has been moving away from ppc64be. Major Linux distros, including de= veloped by IBM subsidiary RedHat, only offer ppc64le binaries (RedHat and c= lones, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE, etc). Many drivers assume that the host is run= ning on little-endian, so those drivers fail to work on big-endian systems.= ppc64be is poorly maintained and tested across many OSes and I don't see w= hy we should continue supporting it when there is no benefit. As we've said before, it's a useful big endian test platform, it's cheaply available (qemu boots ppc64 guests just fine) and drivers / infrastructure that isn't big endian clean should just be cleaned up. If there's no support for ppc64be in lldb then we can just mark that as broken and just use gdb for now. I'd also just like to point out that a platform dying a death of a thousand cuts because people don't want to deal with big endian is, well, how a platform like big endian ends up dying. The fact that people are just used to writing little endian intel stuff is why people keep migrating other platforms to it. If you wonder why I bring this up, please also understand that "why bother with FreeBSD" is also an attitude t= hat various other large projects (see: chrome) have towards us. I see the lack of big endian support in a toolchain and debugging tools their problem, not our loss. :-) -adrian