Red Hat Inc. today announced an agreement with semiconductor maker Motorola Inc. which it promises will bring “a complete [Linux] toolchain” for the PowerPC instruction set architecture with full support for Motorola’s AltiVec technology.
Specifically, Red Hat Inc. will produce a GNUPro Linux toolchain and cross compiler for Motorola’s AltiVec-enabled PowerPC processors. As a result, Motorola’s PowerPC customers will be able to develop Linux apps that take advantage of AltiVec.
“Providing complete support of AltiVec in the GNUPro toolchain for the first time, Red Hat is enabling embedded designers to not only develop Linux-based applications for PowerPC-compliant processors, but also take advantage of the wide datapaths and incredible performance that Motorola’s AltiVec technology delivers,” said Motorola Semiconductor’s Networking and Computing Systems Group director of software Bob France.