[PATCH 6/9] kernel/x86: enable x32 support for amd64

[Thibaut]

> Le 27 avr. 2023 à 02:00, Elliott Mitchell <ehem+openwrt at m5p.com> a écrit :
> 
> On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 12:46:49AM +0200, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann wrote:
> 
>> While I might understand (understand, not support) a desire for this 
>> as a dedicated subtarget (to appease the virtualization crowd), 
>> although I still don't see a reason or sufficient uptake in more 
>> conventional Linux environments. I would not be happy (at all) to 
>> lose 'normal' x86_64 support (on real hardware) for this exotic 
>> fringe hybrid. I can imagine that actually building for this 
>> environment (with a 32 bit userland) might lead to 'funny' results 
>> as well (as in major toolchain changes necessary to get it working 
>> as expected).
> 
> I'm not proposing removing amd64 support, I'm proposing x32 is likely a
> more valuable target.

Do you mean to actually introduce an x86_x32 userspace target in OpenWrt?
If so, I suggest you take a look at [1] to get an idea of the can of worms you might be opening there.

I do not think OpenWrt has the resources to handle this level of breakage for such an exotic, barely upstream supported target.

>  Yet what you're describing reads like your desire
> is for OpenWRT/x86 to simply be yet another desktop Linux distribution.
> 
> Unless you feel a networking device really needs 256GB of memory, virtual
> machines are precisely what OpenWRT/x86 *should* target.  I think it is
> reasonable to also have a jumbo/desktop build, but using an entire x86
> machine doesn't seem to match OpenWRT's main theme.

You seem to ignore perfectly capable so-called « mini pc » routers which are in use out there. They don’t need a « jumbo/desktop » build and they don’t have 256GB RAM, yet they work perfectly well with the current OpenWrt image.

Cheers,
T

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-x32@lists.debian.org&tags=port-x32