On Thu, 2003-07-31 00:19:25 +0200, J.A. Magallon wrote in message <20030730221925.GA2858@werewolf.able.es>: > On 07.30, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: > [...] > > ...and IFF those new opcodes bring _that_ much performance, then we > > should think about another Debian distribution for i686-linux. Up to > > now, I was really proud of having _one_ distribution that's basically > > capable of running on all and any machines I own... > > Do as Mandrake (and I suppose another distros), and put optimized libraries > in /lib/i686, /lib/mmx, /lib/sse, /usr/lib/i686, etc. New ld.so supports > mapping different versions of library depending on arch. I know. ...and this won't work. Think about this: - Some lib links (statically) some parts of libstdc++5.a. This is done on a i386. - Some app (compiled for i486 on some other box) links against the above lib (which was copied over). Now, you've got two ways to access your atomic variables. Do that multithreaded, and you'll boom. It's all about "eventually" and "possibly", but you break binary compatibility at some point. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw@lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet! | im Irak! ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(IRAQ_WAR_2 | DRM | TCPA));