Altivec Linux support in GCC

[Stan Shebs]

Aldy Hernandez wrote:

>>>>>>"Michel" == Michel LESPINASSE <walken@zoy.org> writes:
>>>>>>
>
>  > On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 12:49:48PM -0500, Kumar Gala wrote:
> >> 1. What are there two options to enable the support? (-maltivec 
> >> -mabi=altivec).  If I have a Linux PPC targeted GCC why do I need to 
> >> tell it to use the abi to get altivec code generation?  This just seems 
> >> confusing to the user (I dont have to specify the abi for any other 
> >> option).
>
>Still, only the minority of users do this.
>
>I agree with y'all that -maltivec without -mabi=altivec is useful,
>what I have argued for in the past (and again now), is having
>-maltivec imply -mabi=altivec as the default.  Then, if you want the
>functionality you describe, use -maltivec -mabi=no-altivec.
>
Sounds like a good idea.  I think when this all originally went in,
we were being cautious and incremental - -maltivec would always work,
but -mabi=altivec required cooperating libraries and such.  However,
I think we're past that initial phase now!

Apple goes one further actually, forces AltiVec-friendly ABI always,
since system can trash you if you try to use AltiVec ops but not
the proper ABI.

Stan