Catalin Marinas <catalin.mari...@arm.com> writes: > On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 04:27:12PM +0100, Dennis Gilmore wrote: >> El Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:33:33 -0400 >> Jon Masters <jonat...@jonmasters.org> escribió: >> > On 07/17/2012 06:35 PM, Joe Perches wrote: >> > > On Tue, 2012-07-17 at 23:18 +0100, Catalin Marinas wrote: >> > > >> > >> The uname will still report >> > >> "aarch64" to match the compiler triplet and also avoid confusion of >> > >> existing 32-bit ARM scripts that simply check for "arm*" in the >> > >> machine name. >> >> that means that the yum base arch will need to be aarch64 and the arch >> used in rpm will be aarch64 also. its throwing something weird and >> confusing right in the face of users. I urge you to change it all to >> arm64 just changing the directory in the kernel is pointless as it still >> exposes all the weirdness of the name to users and will result in a >> large amount of education and a constant stream of the same question >> "Where do i find the arm64 bits?" until such time as the users learn >> that arm64 is aarch64. All the tooling uses "uname -m" to determine the >> package architecture. > > The directory name change is just to avoid some word duplication in > arch/aarch64/. It can be a64 (as per the ISA) or aa64 or whatever else. > The "arm64" got most votes so far. I still prefer "aarch64" for > consistency but I'm can change the directory name, it doesn't matter > much. > > As for the "aarch64" name, whether we like it were not, it was chosen by > ARM Ltd to describe the new execution mode. It is one of the few > constants in the changing world of architecture versions and CPU > numbers. It's also a clear separation from the multitude of ARM* names > which I agree, is confusing (and, BTW, we had ARM6 processors as well). > > People that have been involved with this architecture don't find the > name impossible (and not all of them are based in Cambridge ;). It may > not be as aesthetic and easy to pronounce as "arm64" but you get used to > it. I personally find it easier to pronounce (and type) than "x86_64". > > Just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend the "beauty" of this name (I > have my own opinion) but we spend too much time arguing about it. This > name has implications beyond the technical arguments of some script or > another and it will be found in all the technical documents produced by > ARM Ltd (including the next ARM Architecture Reference Manual).
Maybe it would help if someone explained _why_ the aarch64 name was chosen. Assuming it wasn't handed down by a supreme being, there has to be some reasoning behind the choice. -- Måns Rullgård m...@mansr.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/