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    SubjectRe: Linux/IA-64 byte order

    Is it too stupid to suggest an "ENDIANNESS" flag for mmap ? The overhead
    for loading a page from disk is much bigger than the overhead for
    rearranging the bytes. (Perhaps it should be not a flag but an ioctl..)

    Vladimir Dergachev


    On 9 Mar 1999, Linus Torvalds wrote:

    > In article <199903090013.LAA21453@vindaloo.atnf.CSIRO.AU>,
    > Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> wrote:
    > > Hi, all. I've been discussing the byte order that Linux/IA-64 will
    > >have with David Mosberger from HP. I'm arguing for big-endian to be
    > >used.
    >
    > Not a chance in hell.
    >
    > The whole point of IA-64 is to run x86 binaries while still being able
    > to do large data-sets (if you didn't want to run x86 binaries you should
    > just buy an alpha instead, and forget about IA-64).
    >
    > And I'm not going to accept a IA-64 port that does big-endian IA-64 mode
    > and little-endian x86 mode. That's just too ugly for words.
    >
    > >I implore you: please reconsider your decision. Don't punish Linux
    > >because of the x86 legacy.
    >
    > Buy an ultra64 if you need big-endian and 64 bits. Really.
    >
    > We're going to run x86 binaries on any merced we ever have in the near
    > future - we may certainly run native merced binaries too, but running
    > x86 binaries is a given. Which would mean that if the Linux/merced port
    > was natively big-endian, it would have to do a lot of extra conversions
    > from x86 user space to kernel space, for no good technical reason.
    >
    > Mixing endianness on the fly is certainly possible, but stupid unless
    > you have some REALLY good reason for it. And quite frankly, there are
    > NEVER any good technical reasons for considering one endianness over
    > another (it's a completely arbitrary thing).
    >
    > Linus
    >
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