Re: fuword(), suword(), etc.

Shawn wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 03:40, Terry Lambert wrote:
> > It's actually unlikely that IBM will ever release enough documentation
> > to get a full 64 bit Linux running on a PPC 970, let alone FreeBSD,
> > and that you will be stuck with a 32 bit kernel that runs 64 bit apps,
> > and which talks to IBM's internal undocumented glue on the bottom end
> > while running in a virtual environment, such that the interfaces to
> > that glue are not exposed in the source code they publish.
> 
> That's very interesting to me as IBM has been rather forthcoming about
> making sure everyone knows that the 32bit bridge was only temporary and
> to not rely on it being there in the future. I would hope that would
> indicate that they may be willing to release more informaation in the
> future regarding this. Of course, what do I know? :p

IBM doesn't want people running 32 bit code on their 64 bit
hardware forever, and making it look bad, so they have stated
publically that they intend to withdraw support for the 32 bit
bridge in the future, I'll agree.

As to whether this will really happen, or is just a scare tactic
to prevent people from writing new code that depends on the bridge
(which is supposed to be there only to provide support for old
code), I don't know; I haven't worked for IBM for nearly 3 years
now.  Maybe Greg Lehey can comment.

I do know that even if they remove the bridge, they are unlikely
to provide enough documentation to boot and run natively on the
hardware without having IBM code setting up the bus arbitration
and other bits that are currently undocumented.

-- Terry