*BSD News Article 88280


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From: James Mansion <james@wgold.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD slower than Linux ?
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 19:29:25 +0000
Organization: Westongold Ltd
Message-ID: <32F8DF95.57E3@wgold.demon.co.uk>
References: <dkleinh.854654600@isotope.ps.uci.edu> <5crh6q$44j@synge.maths.tcd.ie> <5d830v$4bf@secmon.sarnoff.com> <5d85t9$ipd@helena.MT.net>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:35015

Given that the number of users who:
 - want to do scientific computing
 - and (still) have a 386/486sx and no math copro

is probably vanishing to nothing, wouldn't it make sense to:
 - test during install to see if a copro is present
 - install a library that uses the copro (or built in stuff) if its
   there
 - warn the user if not

I can see that having a safe default is good, but it should be an easy
one to fix during install.

Or even to fix a link during boot.

James

Nate Williams wrote:
> 
> [ Emailed to poster as well ]
> 
> In article <5d830v$4bf@secmon.sarnoff.com>,
> Ron G. Minnich <rminnich@sarnoff.com> wrote:
> >: One thing that it might be is that the FreeBSD maths libraries don't
> >: have FPU code in them the way they are distributed, if you recompile
> >: them with HAVE_FPU=yes in /etc/make.conf this might make quite a
> >: difference for some things.
> >
> >Say it isn't so.
> 
> It is so.
> 
> >Users who might want to use these boxes for real computing,
> >have to recompile and reinstall the math libraries?
> 
> Yep.
> 
> >Maybe it's time to change this particular decision. This one makes my
> >brain hurt.
> 
> So does not being able to run alot of system utils if you're on a
> 386/486SX class machine, which are still in common use by many folks
> using FreeBSD.
> 
> And, it's really easy to re-compile the math libraries. :)
> 
> I suspect there are more users who are concerned about having everything
> work right all the time out of the box than who are concerned about
> having it go as fast as possible on the high-end hardware.
> 
> I *always* recompile the math libraries on my boxes, and on high-end
> hardware that has built in FPU is a 10 minute process (or 30 seconds
> on a high-end PPro box. :)
> 
> Nate
> 
> --
> nate@sri.com           | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations
> work #: (406) 457-9000 |
> nate@trout.mt.sri.com  | An unfeatured document is a bug.
> home #: (406) 443-7063 |                                - John Polstra