Adding the wider powerpc umbrella, so others can take a look as well.

The type NULL checks are good. I think the whole of the changes for pmu_send() are a bit overkill. Could you test with just the one line I pointed out, and the rest reverted?

Impressive

Avoid the extra release_host/acquire_host, since we know it's already in that taken state.

Isn't make.conf also read for userspace builds and ports? I think we still support 32-bit userland. Would there be a corresponding change to remove the i386 bits as well?

I can't speak from authority on this, the original change almost predates my joining. @nwhitehorn made the change, and judging by the timing it was during his powerpc64 bringup, so likely related to some G5 or POWER4 issues encountered during his work. It's possible the real problem has been ironed out in the past 14 years.

Committed as a935c2a63 (don't feel like reverting and updating the commit message)