Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 9 Mar 1999 12:49:21 -0500 (EST) | From | Vladimir Dergachev <> | Subject | Re: Linux/IA-64 byte order |
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Is it too stupid to suggest an "ENDIANNESS" flag for mmap ? The overhead for loading a page from disk is much bigger than the overhead for rearranging the bytes. (Perhaps it should be not a flag but an ioctl..)
Vladimir Dergachev
On 9 Mar 1999, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> In article <199903090013.LAA21453@vindaloo.atnf.CSIRO.AU>, > Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> wrote: > > Hi, all. I've been discussing the byte order that Linux/IA-64 will > >have with David Mosberger from HP. I'm arguing for big-endian to be > >used. > > Not a chance in hell. > > The whole point of IA-64 is to run x86 binaries while still being able > to do large data-sets (if you didn't want to run x86 binaries you should > just buy an alpha instead, and forget about IA-64). > > And I'm not going to accept a IA-64 port that does big-endian IA-64 mode > and little-endian x86 mode. That's just too ugly for words. > > >I implore you: please reconsider your decision. Don't punish Linux > >because of the x86 legacy. > > Buy an ultra64 if you need big-endian and 64 bits. Really. > > We're going to run x86 binaries on any merced we ever have in the near > future - we may certainly run native merced binaries too, but running > x86 binaries is a given. Which would mean that if the Linux/merced port > was natively big-endian, it would have to do a lot of extra conversions > from x86 user space to kernel space, for no good technical reason. > > Mixing endianness on the fly is certainly possible, but stupid unless > you have some REALLY good reason for it. And quite frankly, there are > NEVER any good technical reasons for considering one endianness over > another (it's a completely arbitrary thing). > > Linus > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >
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