From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <17136.13558.773102.465379@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com> Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 13:07:34 +1000 From: Paul Mackerras To: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, linuxppc64-dev@ozlabs.org Subject: Merging ppc32 and ppc64 List-Id: Linux on PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , At OLS I discussed the idea of merging the ppc32 and ppc64 architectures in the Linux kernel with various ppc32 and ppc64 kernel hackers and users. There was broad agreement that this would be a good thing to do, so we are going to go ahead and do it. The plan is to create include/asm-powerpc and arch/powerpc directories for the merged architecture and move stuff in there as it gets merged. The existing ppc32 and ppc64 directories will stay around until they are no longer useful. The intention is not to break anything that currently works; however, we do not plan to move unused and unmaintained platforms into the merged architecture. The advantage of merging is that it will reduce the maintenance effort and reduce the instances where a common bug gets fixed in one architecture but not the other. It will also make it easier to support 64-bit embedded systems as they become more common. I don't see the merge as changing the actual code that gets executed on any given platform very much, except in one respect: we are going to standardize on a flattened device tree as the way that information about the platform gets passed from the boot loader to the kernel. Comments? Flames? :) Paul.