Subject: Re: Perl

From: Matthias Fuchs <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:23:28 +0100

Hi Wolfgang,

I used FC4 ppc binaries for some testing. xlibs, xterm and python where 
the first packages I did some tests with. It was just a try to see what 
happens.

FPU emulation was the first I needed (of course). Then I switched to the ELDK 
ppc_4xxFP root filesystem. This makes it even possible to use perl with math:

bash-3.00# perl -e 'print ("sin(pi/2)=",sin(3.14/2),"\n")'
sin(pi/2)=0.999999682931835
bash-3.00# perl -e 'print ("sqrt(3)=",sqrt(3),"\n")'
sqrt(3)=1.73205080756888
bash-3.00# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
cpu             : 405GPr
clock           : 399MHz
revision        : 9.81 (pvr 5091 0951)
bogomips        : 495.61
machine         : esd CPCI-405
plb bus clock   : 133MHz
pci bus clock   : 33MHz
bash-3.00#  

I would not recommend to use this for production. But its a good starting 
point before turning on the compiler :-)

Matthias

On Friday 24 November 2006 00:00, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> In message <[email-masked]> you 
wrote:
> > 
> > there's a quick'n'dirty way to get a perl running on your CPU.
> > Take the Fedora Core 4 ppc binary rpm (perl-5.8.6-15.ppc.rpm) and install 
it 
> > from an ELDK 4 root filesystem:
> 
> This will only work if you are running on a system where your CPU has
> a full-blown CPU,  32  bytes  cache  line  size,  and  your  run-time
> environment (all system libraries) are configured to use the FPU.
> 
> It will fail on  FPU-less  or  FPU-restricted  systems  like  MPC8xx,
> PPC4xx, or MPC85xx.
> 
> > Note: This test has been done on a PPC405. But do not forget to use a 
kernel 
> > with math emulation for this to work. 
> 
> I guess you didn't do much testing. You should try some  mathematics,
> and  you  might  be surprised what happens when your Perl binary uses
> the (emulated) FPU, while the system libraries use soft-float.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 
> -- 
> Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
> Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: [email-masked]
> It's all Klatchian to me.
>         - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs, _The Discworld Companion_
> 
> 

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