On Tue, 2011-03-29 at 10:45 -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
Gordan Bobic <gordan(a)bobich.net> writes:
> Jon Masters wrote:
>> On Sat, 2011-03-26 at 21:10 +0000, Matthew Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> 2. Armv7 / VFP / NEON support to squeeze a bit more performance out
>>> (where appropriate to the h/w).
>>
>> FWIW, I think (eventually), moving to an ARMv7 base has a lot of
>> benefit, with not a (lot) of drawback. After all, Fedora ARM is new
>> enough that there isn't a lot of legacy out there (there will always be
>> old ARM boards people want to use, certainly), and all of the boards now
>> being produced are based on Cortex (or similar) designs with v7. There
>> are one or two notable exceptions, but it's obvious where things are
>> headed. It's really just a question of /when/ to switch IMHO.
>
> I think you are overestimating the proliveration of ARMv7. There are a
> lot of capable ARMv5 devices out there, such as the SheevaPlug/GuruPlug.
>
> Is the plan to offer both v5 and v7 builds (same way as there is an x86
> and x86-64 build)? Or v7 only?
Please do not alienate us SheevaPlug/GuruPlug users.
> IMO committing to ARMv7 to the point of exclusion of everything else
> would be a bad idea at the moment. The primary motivation for the v7
> switch is performance, and there are still a number of ARMv5 and ARMv6
> devices out there that are more than adequate on the ARM performance scale.
Seconded. Please do not drop v5 support.
The current plan is to continue armv5tel (softfp) and to add armv7hl
(hardfp+vfp) in the f15 cycle (post F15-armv5tel release). So no, there
are no plans to drop v5 at this time.
(An open question would be whether there's value in a small armv7l
initiative (softfp+v7+vfp+neon) for some of the key libraries in the
interim, to work with the rest of the armv5tel userspace).
-Chris