[racket-dev] Build failure on specific PPC systems

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 09:34:30AM -0600, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> Right --- the Racket JIT definitely does not support PPC in 64-bit
> mode.
> 
> The Racket PPC JIT is enabled on Linux when `powerpc' is #defined at
> build time. Is `powerpc' #defined for the 64-bit build, perhaps in
> addition to `powerpc64'? Or is just `powerpc64' #defined?

By default debian ppc is 32bit.  The kernel is 64bit and some libraries
have 64bit versions built, but for the most part the system is 32bit.
Unlike x86_64, ppc (and sparc and a number of others) are usualyl less
efficient in 64bit mode due to pointer sizes and cache overhead, and
don't gain anything from going 64bit unless the application really has
a need for lots of memory space.  Hence no ppc64 port in debian.

I even tried doing 'linux32 dpkg-buildpackage' which makes the uname -m
claim to be 32bit, and even then with 32bit userspace and a kernel
claiming to be 32bit, it still failed the same way.

-- 
Len Sorensen