Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2025 21:25:49 +0000 From: Minsoo Choo <minsoochoo0122@proton.me> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Future of armv7 Message-ID: <SHrv104B8c1Z14L2kWiMcV5mdMSCc8FB1lplUrzZ_Opcl69mCpN4_5qYn2uaIEB-NiyVK53YCD519zsiMoAvnDADs3d1P0qJh-hRxGLseng=@proton.me> In-Reply-To: <39fcac30-1602-445d-9603-b56d28882fe1@FreeBSD.org> References: <8aa378a1-94fb-4cb1-9bca-8e68eb8e0938@FreeBSD.org> <aT7WYMeUH0Al_jctvmUjFcHf5Ed7OlkWJuOsxNARl0c_KKQm7U9mnRZEXVzDpFOVwXynVTjlRbIqhiQuoGZ3NPH9DjBIxsXMpgaMSFOnt-U=@proton.me> <39fcac30-1602-445d-9603-b56d28882fe1@FreeBSD.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 at 3:14 PM, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> wrote: > On 11/17/25 20:56, Minsoo Choo wrote: > > > Hi John, > > > > On Friday, November 14th, 2025 at 12:09 PM, John Baldwin jhb@FreeBSD.org wrote: > > > > > Two and a half years ago when we first began talking about deprecating > > > 32-bit architectures in 15.0, we decided to keep armv7 for at least > > > the stable/15 branch but did not commit to anything beyond that. Now > > > that 15.0 is close to shipping and we are turning our development > > > focus to 16.0, we should figure out what we want to say about armv7 > > > for 16.x in the 15.0 release notes so that users have suitable notice. > > > > > > In particular, do we want to deprecate armv7 in 16.0 (similar to the > > > state of 32-bit powerpc in 15.0), or do we want to keep it? > > > > > > My initial suggestion is that we announce that we plan to deprecate it > > > in 16.0. In that case, I would also suggest that we follow a similar > > > process of keeping armv7 for most of the lifetime of 16.0 so that we > > > can reneg if need be during the 16.0 cycle. > > > > > > What do other folks think? > > > > > > -- > > > John Baldwin > > > > I've been thinking on this matter for the last few days. But after reading others' replies, especially Ruslan's, I'm leaning towards the removal of armv7. > > > > Below is the reason why I thought we should maintain armv7. > > - armv7 is still widely used in some industries. As others said, our survey might have failed to count those people. We don't know the what the silent majority says yet, and unlike powerpc64be, many believes that armv7 still has its place somewhere. > > - Maintaining at least one 32-bit platform makes porting FreeBSD to new 32-bit platforms easier in future. > > > I will just speak to this one point (though I know it's a point you no longer > hold): FreeBSD is unlikely to add a new 32-bit platform. RISC-V has both > 32-bit and 64-bit ISAs, but we are only supporting the 64-bit ISA and are > purposely avoiding the 32-bit ISA. So we have already run that experiment > in the last few years. > > -- > John Baldwin It became clear when I read RISC-V profiles[1] recently. The only 32-bit profile is RVI20U32, but this doesn't come with supervisor-mode ISA, so it's not suitable to run FreeBSD. I find discussions on new 32-bit architecture suitable for FreeBSD not meaningful anymore. [1] https://riscv.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HOME/pages/16154769/RISC-V+Technical+Specifications#Profiles
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?SHrv104B8c1Z14L2kWiMcV5mdMSCc8FB1lplUrzZ_Opcl69mCpN4_5qYn2uaIEB-NiyVK53YCD519zsiMoAvnDADs3d1P0qJh-hRxGLseng=>