linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 00/36] AArch64 Linux kernel port

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Date:	Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:13:02 -0400
From:	Jon Masters <jcm@...hat.com>
To:	"Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <linux@...blig.org>
CC:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Olof Johansson <olof@...om.net>,
	Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/36] AArch64 Linux kernel port

On 07/08/2012 07:17 AM, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> * Jon Masters (jcm@...hat.com) wrote:
>> On 07/07/2012 03:27 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>> On Saturday 07 July 2012, Olof Johansson wrote:
>>>
>>>>> ARM introduced AArch64 as part of the ARMv8 architecture
>>>>
>>>> With the risk of bikeshedding here, but I find the name awkward. How
>>>> about just naming the arch port arm64 instead? It's considerably more
>>>> descriptive in the context of the kernel.  For reference, we didn't
>>>> name ppc64, nor powerpc, after what the IBM/power.org marketing people
>>>> were currently calling the architecture at the time either.
>>>
>>> I agree the name sucks, and I'd much prefer to just call it arm64
>>> as well. The main advantage of the aarch64 name is that it's the
>>> same as the identifier in the elf triplet, and it makes sense to
>>> keep the same name for all places where we need to identify the
>>> architecture. This also includes the rpm and dpkg architecture names,
>>> and the string returned by the uname syscall. If everything else
>>> is aarch64, we should use that in the kernel directory too, but
>>> if everyone calls it arm64 anyway, we should probably use that name
>>> for as many things as possible.
>>
>> FWIW I actually really like the aarch64 name (but you know that already
>> :) ). I think it clearly spells out that this is not just a 64-bit
>> extension to the existing 32-bit ARM Architecture, it is a new (inspired
>> by ARM) architecture. Implementations will also run in AArch32 state
>> (A32 and T32), but it's not like x86->x86_64.
> 
> It's one advantage is that it won't trigger the infinite number
> of broken scripts out there that do something on arm*

Indeed. I believe that was another reason for the name choice,
especially in the toolchain, but also in kernel/uname.

Jon.
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