[Arm-netbook] RedSleeve - New ARM Linux Distro

[Gordan Bobic]

cnxsoft wrote:
> On 26/03/2012 15:34, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>> So, I am planning on using Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin ARM port.
>>>
>>> Just my personal response, others might want to set the bar lower.
>> The problem is that there are a LOT of ARMv5 and ARMv6 devices out
>> there, and targetting ARMv7 soft-float doesn't actually gain you all
>> that much. Hard-float ARMv7 does gain you some extra performance, but
>> only on FP-heavy applications.
>>
>> There is also the fact that in the tool chain used on el6 hasn't good a
>> sufficiently bug-free hard-float support, so targeting ARMv7 HF isn't an
>> option. The primary point of the distro was to have EL6 for ARM. I don't
>> see HF as a being particularly high on the requirements list, especially
>> since some of the benefit comes from NEON - which doesn't exist on some
>> ARMv7 CPUs.
>>
>> So if you go down that route, you have to have at least three distros:
>> armv5tel, armv7hl, and armv7hl+neon. That means three times the amount
>> of work for what isn't going to be a great deal of benefit at the
>> moment, at least while dropping armv5tel support isn't a viable option.
>>
> AFAIK, Linaro has implemented code so that it detects NEON at runtime, 
> so there is no need for armv7hf and armv7hf+neon distribution.

I don't think that is referring to what you think it is referring to, 
but I'll be glad if I'm wrong. Can you cite a source?

Gordan