To Thumb? or Not to Thumb?

== Project Description ==

Fedora-ARM does not use thumb. The purpose of this project is to discover whether thumb provides any significant savings in terms of code size, whether programs compiled to thumb execute more quickly or more slowly than non-thumb programs on common ARM processors, whether a thumb compilation takes more or less time than non-thumb, and whether there are any other factors that would influence the decision to support thumb. Ultimately, this project should make a recommendation on the use of the thumb instruction set for the Fedora-ARM secondary architecture.

== Project Leader(s) ==

thlee3@learn.senecac.on.ca

== What I need to learn ==

- yumdownloader

- rpm2cpio

== Project Plan ==

I collaborated with [http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/User:Mjeamiguel Mark Eamiguel]. We made arrangements so that I used ''cdot-beagleXM-0-3'' during the day time, and he used during the night to avoid interruption on our benchmarks. We also gave each other tips on working with these remote systems, such as using application ''screen'' and command ''who''.

== Test results ==

nonthumb 48576 98132 37900

thumb... 40563 93107 29932

== Project Details ==

So far I've seen more improvements than decrements from THUMB. As I'm aware of that more benchmarks are required before having an concrete answer, but for now it is safe to say that THUMB for Fedora-ARM is worth further development.

== Project News ==

December 14th, 2010 - Project (v0.3) completed.

== Resources ==