Re: [PATCH 0/11 v3] enable "make ARCH=x86"

[Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>]

On Saturday 10 November 2007 18:54, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 09, 2007 at 10:23:23PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > >This is the patch that get rid of ARCH=i386 and ARCH=x86_64
> > >and introduce ARCH=x86.
> > >It touches several files but the changes are all one or two-liners.
> > >
> > >      x86: drop backward compatibility symlinks to i386/boot and
> > >      x86_64/boot
> > >      kbuild: sanity check the specified arch
> >
> > IMO it negatives impacts the workflow when you -remove- the ability to
> > set 32/64-bit on the make command line.
> >
> > Building and testing for both architectures now requires the additional
> > step of editing .config, which is a clear workflow negative impact at
> > least for me.
>
> When it was decided to unify i386 and x86_64 it was at the same time
> decided to handle them as a *single* architecture.
>
> Keeping ARCH=i386 and ARCH=x86_64 around is just a way to pretend
> this is two diffrent architectures which is no longer the case.
>
> Do we need a way to say "build a kernel that is 64 bit"?
> If we need this then we should look at the most intuitive way
> to say so and this should work across x86, powerpc and s390.
>
> 	make 64BIT=y ARCH=x86
>
> looks so much more intuitive. And it is generic.
> This is just a proposal.
>
> But lets focus on finding a generic solution and not try
> to hang around in old habbits.

I agree. So long as you can do it easily on the commandline, it's
no problem, and we should be consistent (in calling the arch x86).