On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 5:45 AM, Dan Horák <dan@danny.cz> wrote:
On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 18:21:06 -0400
Josh Boyer <jwboyer@fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 5:24 PM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 9:35 PM, Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>
> > wrote:
> >> On 09/05/2017 03:03 PM, Steven Munroe wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 2017-09-01 at 09:24 -0500, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> >>>> On 09/01/2017 09:03 AM, Steven Munroe wrote:
> >>>>> If you want to cut back you can't try 970 as base, plus power6
> >>>>> and power7 -mtune power8
> >>>>
> >>>> s/can't/can/g?
> >>>>
> >>>> I assume you're suggestion:
> >>>>
> >>>> * 970 base multilib.
> >>>> * power6 multilib.
> >>>> * power7 multilib with power8 tunning.
> >>>>
> >>>> Which implies:
> >>>>
> >>>> * Drop the power8 multilib.
> >>>>
> >>>> That drops only 1 multilib.
> >>>>
> >>>> Do we need power6 or can we fold that into the 970?
> >>>> e.g.
> >>>>
> >>>> * 970 base multilib with power6 tuning.
> >>>> * power7 multilib with power8 tuning.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> That seems simple but is ignoring the major features added with
> >>> each ISA level.
> >>>
> >>> So between 970 and power8 we added DFP, VSX, VSX Scalar Float,
> >>> and HTM. This is over 300 new instructions including additions to
> >>> existing ISA categories, like Fixed Point 64-bit, Floating Point,
> >>> and VMX (Altivec) beyond what was in 970.
> >>>
> >>> So what you propose will mean Power6 would be restricted to
> >>> software emulation of DFP and the DFP hardware unused. And will
> >>> not have the mutex lock hint and compare bytes optimization.
> >>>
> >>> Power7 will get both HW DFP and VSX (vector double and extended
> >>> scalar double) but without Scalar extended Float. Also will leave
> >>> the HTM and direct moves (GPR <-> VSR) optimization disabled.
> >>>
> >>> So if you holding on to your Apple G5 you may not know what your
> >>> missing, but your P6 JS21 blade will be disappointing. And your
> >>> P8 will run slow due to missing direct move support.
> >>
> >> The library, glibc, *may* be missing the use of some of those
> >> instructions in the library and *iff* the compiler generated them
> >> as part of the compilation of generic C code.
> >>
> >> The POWER7 multilib will still have POWER8 IFUNCs which make use of
> >> all the POWER8 assembly implemented IFUNCs that IBM has contributed
> >> upstream.
> >>
> >> How much of these features you quote are actually used by glibc
> >> when compiled for that architecture?
> >>
> >> I expect user applications would make use of libdfp to access the
> >> full power of POWER6 DFP, but glibc itself doesn't use DFP
> >> internally, so I still don't see how the above suggested reduction
> >> makes things really worse.
> >>
> >> We are only talking about limiting the glibc multilibs that we
> >> build.
> >>
> >> How about:
> >>
> >> * 970 with POWER6 tuning.
> >>   - Will not use DFP within glibc, but we have never used DFP in
> >> glibc.
> >>
> >> * POWER7 with POWER8 tuning.
> >>   - Enables POWER8 IFUNCs.
> >>   - Enables HTM by checking for capability (not limited to strict
> >> POWER7).
> >>   - Yes, glibc looses out on direct move optimizations.
> >>
> >> * POWER9
> >>   - Enables everything.
> >
> > I thought Power9 was being focused towards ppc64le and not ppc64 so
> > maybe for BE it might not be worth enabling as you're likely going
> > to want to run this HW as LE anyway
>
> We haven't had much discussion on Power9 on this list as it's still
> not publicly GAed hardware, and therefore not something we can build
> for in Fedora yet.  When that time comes, I'd definitely suggest ONLY
> enabling for little-endian.

I think the main question regarding ppc64 (BE) is how many users are
there at all, is someone using a Power-based HW in addition to the G5
and if yes, then which one - Power 6 or 7 or 8? I suspect the number of
users of Power-based HW is close to zero (especially for Power<8). If am
I wrong, then please speak up now :-)


Hi all, I'm late to this discussion but wanted to chime in as a hobbyist. My main use is software development & exploring different architectures.

I run Fedora ppc64 BE on Power7 (IBM PS701, PS703 blades). Pretty sure it's Fedora 25, had no problems installing and running.

I also have two IBM QS22 blades I'd like to make use of. Should I expect Fedora to work on these?

Would like to run a graphical version on Apple G5 but had boot-time trouble last time I tried installing Fedora. Maybe the same issue Al Dunsmuir mentioned? Ubuntu MATE mostly works on the G5, but it was an unpleasant adventure getting it on there in a working state.

How much would glibc tuning make a difference, given my purpose of custom software development? Most of my stuff is multi-threaded C++11 with vector intrinsics. I'm not running databases or general-purpose software. As long as the shipped compiler can generate tuned code for the host... isn't that enough?

Thanks for keeping ppc alive!

Mike Erwin
musician, naturalist, pixel pusher, hacker extraordinaire