From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 8 09:27:14 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 054D616A417; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 09:27:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from des@des.no) Received: from tim.des.no (tim.des.no [194.63.250.121]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B98D213C447; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 09:27:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from des@des.no) Received: from tim.des.no (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by spam.des.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5220C209C; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:27:05 +0100 (CET) X-Spam-Tests: AWL X-Spam-Learn: disabled X-Spam-Score: -0.2/3.0 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on tim.des.no Received: from ds4.des.no (des.no [80.203.243.180]) by smtp.des.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 376652089; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:27:05 +0100 (CET) Received: by ds4.des.no (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 2C36C8449F; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:27:05 +0100 (CET) From: =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= To: Andrew Reilly References: <477C82F0.5060809@freebsd.org> <863ateemw2.fsf@ds4.des.no> <200801032200.25650.peter.schuller@infidyne.com> <8663yac62d.fsf@ds4.des.no> <477E72FC.5070304@freebsd.org> <477EA466.6060204@FreeBSD.org> <477EFEAB.8090807@freebsd.org> <20080107074209.5c20f083@duncan.reilly.home> <86ejcu7yzq.fsf@ds4.des.no> <20080108103017.2a6d299d@duncan.reilly.home> Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:27:05 +0100 In-Reply-To: <20080108103017.2a6d299d@duncan.reilly.home> (Andrew Reilly's message of "Tue\, 8 Jan 2008 10\:30\:17 +1100") Message-ID: <864pdor7km.fsf@ds4.des.no> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.1 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:36:26 +0000 Cc: Dag-Erling@des.no, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, =?utf-8?Q?Sm=C3=B8=40freebsd=2Eo=40des=2Eno?=@des.no, Jason Evans , =?utf-8?Q?=2C?=@des.no, =?us-ascii?Q?=3FISO-8859-1=3FQ=3Frg?=@des.no, ?= Tim Kientzle , =?us-ascii?Q?=3D?=@des.no, Peter Schuller Subject: Re: ELF dynamic loader name X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:27:14 -0000 Andrew Reilly writes: > Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav writes: > > Two-way i386 + amd64 executables would be very useful, since they can > > run on the same hardware with just a change of kernel. > How is that useful? I386 executables can run on the same hardware > with the same changes of kernel. ...but they cannot take advantage of the full capabilities of amd64 (not just address space, but larger number of general-purpose registers etc.) Even further, an i386 binary built for maximum compatibility cannot assume SSE2 support, while an amd64 binary can. Conversely, there are (admittedly not many, but some) workloads that run faster on i386 than on amd64. Imagine having a single binary distribution and a single install CD or DVD that runs unmodified on i386 and amd64 - that would cover 90% or more of our user base. DES --=20 Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav - des@des.no