Re: Linux on Cirrus EP93xx

[Lennert Buytenhek <buytenh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 11:52:44AM +0200, Claudio Scordino wrote:

> - Cirrus distributes a patched 2.6.8.1 kernel for such cpu. At the
> same time, also the standard 2.6.20 kernel supports the cpu.  Which
> kernel is better ? What kind of support each kernel misses ?

The advantage that 2.6.8.1-cirrus currently still has is more complete
peripheral support.  The advantage of 2.6.20 is that you get all the
bug fixes and improvements that have happened in Linux between 2.6.8.1
and 2.6.20.

If you use 2.6.20, you'll likely to get support for it on these mailing
lists, whereas if you use 2.6.8.1-cirrus, you probably won't.

If you use 2.6.8.1-cirrus, on the other hand, you get the guarantee that
all ep93xx code was 100% written by Cirrus employees[*] -- whether that
is something that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside is left up to you.


> - My application has many floating point operations, so I want to
> exploit the Maverick Crunch Math engine of the cpu. What kind of
> toolchain do I need to enable such engine ? Does a standard
> no-soft-float toolchain work ?

A hardfloat toolchain?  Probably not, unless you want to write all your
floating point code in assembly.  Try either a softfloat or EABI toolchain
and userland.


[*] http://www.freelists.org/archives/linux-cirrus/02-2007/msg00026.html

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