[openib-general] 32-bit build for ppc64 is required

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

> Quoting Hoang-Nam Nguyen <HNGUYEN at de.ibm.com>:
> Subject: Re: 32-bit build for ppc64 is required
> 
> > So, what you suggest is - build 2 types of libraries, but on PPC make
> > binaries 32 bit? That's easy - do others agree to this approach?
> No, for execs please create 32bit and 64bit on PPC.
>
> > Another option is to build binaries with whatever type of binary
> > gcc without extra flags generates by default.
> On PPC we really need the ability to build both versions. The reason is
> simply that there're customers who want them. Why don't offer both
> options, and each component owner can decide her/his default?

I don't think this can be elegantly dealt with on a per-component basis.
But if some component owner has an opinion on this, do speak up - note
this affects binaries only, not libraries such as libehca.

> And the
> customers can pick the one(s) they like.
> I see your point regarding QA effort. Is it really twice?

Probably more - I'm reasonably sure most scripts written so far
assume stuff is installed in prefix/bin, so testing harness etc
would need to be changed.

And how to make sure the *correct* set of binaries was actually
QA'd?

> My assumption
> might be wrong: I guess we have to assure/test the 32/64bit compatibility
> anyway eg. 32bit client talks to 64bit server.
> If we have 32bit execs only for development resp. testing, why don't we
> also give them to customers in order to do basic test or diagnosis of
> their setup?

Because of the confusion this would create.
For shared libraries, the 32/64 bit issues seem to be automatically figured out
by ld.so, but there's no such solution for binaries.

-- 
MST