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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!uunet!in1.uu.net!128.138.240.25!boulder!csnews!alumni!atk From: atk@alumni.cs.Colorado.EDU (Alan T Krantz) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD slower than Linux ? Date: 5 Feb 1997 19:01:34 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder CS Dept Lines: 51 Message-ID: <5dalee$1jc$1@csnews.cs.colorado.edu> References: <dkleinh.854654600@isotope.ps.uci.edu> <5crh6q$44j@synge.maths.tcd.ie> <5d830v$4bf@secmon.sarnoff.com> <5d85t9$ipd@helena.MT.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: alumni.cs.colorado.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:35196 The real question, I think, is how many users (not kernel developers) know or should know that they need to rebuild their environment (libraries, ...) to use floating point. I would think not so many, esp since most new systems (I think all since 486sx) have hardware floating point... If the answer is not so many than perhaps installation procedure should high-light that FPU support needs to be turned on... atk : >: 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