Preparing code for 64-bit ARM
Code Cleanup
"maddog" and Linaro are collaborating on a contest to improve the performance of certain GNU/Linux source code modules.
Last month, I wrote briefly about a project I am doing for Linaro, which is an association of ARM processor companies that collaborate to achieve better support for Linux on ARM systems. The original project was to help with approximately 1,400 source code modules in the GNU/Linux system containing assembly language and to make sure these modules were ready for the 64-bit version of ARM processors now appearing from various manufacturers.
Steve McIntyre, a friend of mine who works for ARM directly, lwocated the 1,400 modules and analyzed some for content and difficulty in "porting." Steve has had a lot of expertise with this because he has been a long-time kernel programmer and was the Debian project leader for a while.
Steve noticed that while some of the modules were very good, in some the 32-bit assembly language had been added in a sub-optimal way, not taking advantage of some of the ARM features. In other cases, the assembly language was doing tasks (i.e., identification of hardware) that would be better performed in a compiler "intrinsic," which could then be used by every machine architecture in a consistent way.
[...]
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