Re: mac68ksf - new softfloat Macintosh port.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:04:27 Jason Thorpe wrote:
> > On Oct 14, 2025, at 4:29=E2=80=AFPM, Nathanial Sloss
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >=20
> > Hi,
> >=20
> > Now that the m68k softfloat userland libm test results are are zero
> > failures (1 expected failure).
> >=20
> > I'd like to pre-announce a new port - mac68ksf.
>=20
> Nat =E2=80=94 this is super cool, and thank you for doing this work!
>=20
> I would suggest a couple of things:
>=20
> 1- Have we made sure that the ELF object / binaries are properly decorated
> with something that indicates they=E2=80=99re soft float-only?  If not, w=
e should
> investigate that, and make sure the effort is coordinated with the
> toolchain folks.

I'm not sure as to how to go about that - I can confirm that as far as pkgs=
rc=20
goes the packages are labeled with the correct arch but at the moment not=20
binaries.

>=20
> 2- We should make sure that hard float systems can natively exec the soft
> float binaries, and we should perhaps consider some sort of
> compat-dynamic-linker thing like is done with ARM with VFP or amd64 with
> 32-bit binaries / libraries.
>=20

I've been doing some experimenting and as long as both versions of the libs=
=20
are installed and LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set (or equiv) both binaries run.




> 3- Make it possible to build any hard float m68k platform as =E2=80=9Cm68=
ksf=E2=80=9D
> =E2=80=9Cnatively=E2=80=9D.  This might make things better for package bu=
ilders (I=E2=80=99m
> thinking forward to the day when perhaps we can reliably use virt68k as a
> =E2=80=9Cnative=E2=80=9D builder for m68k packages, and it would be nice =
to be able to do
> both).
>=20

I was wondering would it be ok to add a variant of virt68k to build.sh=20
(possibly called virt68ksf).  Should be easy enoungh for all m68k machines.

Having said that there's probably a better way to do it.


> But these are all very much nice-to-haves.  Kudos to you!  I know you=E2=
=80=99ve
> been working on this for quite some time!

Thanks Jason!  I'm happy I can breathe life into my PowerBook 520 which I=20
really responsive to use and hopefully this means long term support for m68=
k=20
softfloat.


>=20
> -- thorpej


Best regards,

Nat