ia32 ports...

[Francois Tigeot]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 11:51:58AM -0800, David O'Brien wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 07:10:56PM +0100, Francois Tigeot wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 11:17:21AM -0500, David Gilbert wrote:
> > > Having wrestled with a few ports (including java) on amd64, what I
> > > don't understand is why we don't have the capability to compile ia32
> > > versions of ports that won't compile in amd64 mode...
> > 
> > It would be even better to have an option to compile amd64 binaries with
> > 32-bit pointers.
> > Unclean code would be able to run an still benefit from the amd64
> > architectural improvements (more registers, better abi, etc...)
> 
> The extra registers (and thus ABI) is not supported in 32-bit mode for
> compatability reasons.

I know that. What I meant was not to compile to i386 but to amd64 with
32-bit pointers. The binary would technically still be a 64-bit one.

This page explains the mechanism:
http://alpha.caspur.it/C++6.3A_DOC/uguhdr.htm#xtaso_sec

It was possible to compile "32-bit limited" applications on the Alpha, which
was a 64-bit only architecture. I don't know if it is possible on amd64.

I'm not sure I'm very clear either.

-- 
Francois Tigeot