RFC: Dynamic hwcaps

[Dave Martin]

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Russell King - ARM Linux
<linux at arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 07, 2010 at 03:06:51PM +0000, Dave Martin wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Russell King - ARM Linux
>> <linux at arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
>> > On Tue, Dec 07, 2010 at 10:45:42AM +0000, Dave Martin wrote:
>> >> Yes-- though I didn't elaborate on it.  You need a packager that can
>> >> understand, say, that a binary built for ARMv5 EABI can interoperate
>> >> with ARMv7 binaries etc.
>> >> Again, I've heard it suggested that RPM can handle this, but I haven't
>> >> looked at it in detail myself.
>> >
>> > That is indeed the case - as on x86, it used to be common to build the
>> > majority of the distribution for i386, and glibc and a few other bits
>> > for a range of ix86 CPUs.
>> >
>> > rpm and yum know that i386 is compatible with i486, which is compatible
>> > with i586 etc, so it will install an i386 package on i686 if no i486,
>> > i586 or i686 package is available.
>> >
>> > It does the same for ARM with ARMv3, ARMv4 etc.
>>
>> That sounds plausible.
>
> That sounds like doubt.
>
> I've used rpm extensively over the last 10 years or so, both on x86 and
> ARM.  I've built many versions of Red Hat and Fedora for ARM.  My ARM
> machines here (including the one which is going to send this email) run
> the result of that - and is currently a mixture of ARMv3 and ARMv4
> Fedora packages.

Only doubt in the sense that I don't have experience with it myself,
but I'm happy to take your word on it since you're more familiar with
rpm.

Cheers
---Dave