Re: Question about linux non-standard powerpc SPE FPU

"
Any software that doesn't use FPU at all should work I believe. Any that 
uses FPU would not, unless the kernel happens to be configured to emulate 
an FPU. I can't remember if powerpc ever had an option to do that. 
I know some architectures in the past did at least. 

Looking at the kernel config, it appears CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION exists 
and may in fact do just that. 

In fact I found some discussions from 8 years ago that said tha A1222 can 
in fact run powerpc code with the MATH_EMULATION kernel option enabled. 
It's not recommended, since the FPU performance is terrible. 

I will continue to despise the A1222 even existing for the fact they 
put that garbage CPU on it that is not a proper powerpc and broke all 
existing compatibility of AmigaOS 4 FPU using code. 
"



thank you for answer - MATH_EMULATION is exactly what I searching for. 





Yes I know, P1022 CPU is far from ideal for desktop.


On other hand, it is very interesting old embedded processor and has not 
only incompatible SPE FPU, but also SPE SIMD APU. It uses 64-bit vectors, so
is far less powerful than VMX / AltiVec, but still nice.

And gcc vectorization feature works OOTB here, so it can be used relatively 
easy.




And even if  modern versions of gcc droped support of SPE, Debian Sid 
powerpc port still be used with custom kernel.




"Len Sorensen "



thank you very much for info

Martina