[ros-dev] Endianess

[Tristan Miller]

Hey,

   Sorry, having problems with internet or else I'd ask this on IRC.  I was
curious as to why the emphasis on little-endian mode in powerpc.  Mac G5's
don't even have le-mode, and it definitely seems that (although im not
totally sure, as theres not much info out in the wild yet) that the XBox360
lacks le-mode as well.  Also, on the processors that support le-mode, it
seems in all cases (although theres probably some embedded guy that I'm
missing : P) that do support it, it's selectable at the minimum at the
user/supervisor level with only a bit of work.  Perhaps eventually a
thunking layer (maybe a part of NTVDM, would it need to be that complex?)
that would translate the calls from le usermode to a be kernel could be
written, allowing one to run NT-PPC applications that are out there.  We
wouldn't be able to load drivers (or any le kernel code), but are there
actually any PPC drivers out in the wild?  Plus, it seems that it would
definitely be a good thing for the kernel source to be tested  on multiple
endians as early as possible in its development to ease porting later on.

   ~ Tristan Miller
      (monocasa)