Re: [gentoo-dev] Keyword amd64 -> x86_64

[Marius Mauch]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:40:23 +0100
Fabian Groffen <grobian@g.o> wrote:

> On 20-02-2008 19:23:26 +0100, Marius Mauch wrote:
> > On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:59:11 -0500
> > "William L. Thomson Jr." <wltjr@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > > Please excuse my ignorance if this is a naive comment or has been
> > > brought up before. With all the non amd processors now with 64bit
> > > support. amd64 as a keyword seems a bit odd and off maybe.
> > >
> > > What's the possibility of switching amd64 to x86_64?
> > >
> > > Unless the work to do that is greater than the value of the
> > > change.
> >
> > As the benefit is close to nothing IMO the required work is
> > definitely greater by several orders of magnitude.
>
> Well, that depends a bit.  We basically introduced x64 a shorthand,
> and changed some keywords in prefix, of which I just finished the
> transition.  It's basically just setting the new keyword in the
> profiles, and then gradually changing the keywords, e.g. on a repoman
> commit.  That's sort of how I did it.  You don't need any Portage
> support, IMHO.

- sorry, but comparing prefix with its limited and (I assume)
technically skilled userbase that is used to change to the main tree
where people sometimes don't update their system for years is like
comparing apples and oranges
- you forgot the necessary updates to documentation and renaming of
other amd64 related stuff, only changing the keyword would make things
worse IMO
- what I wanted to say is that any amount of work required to realize
this is greater than the benefit
- x64 is IMO the worst name for the architecture (originally a MS
marketing term later adopted by Sun, looks too similar to x86, name
doesn't make any sense really if you compare it to x86)

Marius
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