Debian Bug report logs - #745938
decide on the future of sparc in unstable

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 18:39:46 +0200

Package: ftp.debian.org
Severity: normal

Dear FTP masters,

now that sparc has been dropped from testing, please decide on the fate
of sparc in unstable.

Kind regards and thanks
Philipp Kern

Message #8 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org, Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:16:12 +0200

Hi,

Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> writes:
> now that sparc has been dropped from testing, please decide on the fate
> of sparc in unstable.

Are there still people interested in the current sparc port?

I don't remember seeing any replies to the release team's concers
regarding sparc, so my first impression is that people are no longer
working on it... In that case I don't think we should keep it in the
archive much longer.

Ansgar

Message #13 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>

Cc: 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>, Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 13:05:28 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

I still run Debian on three SPARC machines, so I am definitely interested.

Patrick


On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 12:16 PM, Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> writes:
> > now that sparc has been dropped from testing, please decide on the fate
> > of sparc in unstable.
>
> Are there still people interested in the current sparc port?
>
> I don't remember seeing any replies to the release team's concers
> regarding sparc, so my first impression is that people are no longer
> working on it... In that case I don't think we should keep it in the
> archive much longer.
>
> Ansgar
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> listmaster@lists.debian.org
> Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87d2g4royr.fsf@deep-thought.43-1.org
>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #18 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 21:33:44 +0200

Hello,

we currently have in unstable/main/sparc precisely 35491 packages, of
a total of 40634 available packages, that cannot be installed in the
current version of unstable:

% dose-debcheck --fg Packages --deb-ignore-essential
background-packages: 0
foreground-packages: 40634
total-packages: 40634
broken-packages: 35491

The most common cause seems to be that libgcc1 1:4.8.2-19 depends on
gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.2-19), and version 4.8.2-20 is in the archive. I just
found this when I investigated why the daily run of my dose-debcheck script
explodes the last 3 days.

-Ralf.

Message #23 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

To: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>

Cc: 745938@bugs.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 00:23:46 +0200

Hi,

thanks for taking me into Cc.

Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
> Philipp Kern <pkern@debian.org> writes:
> > now that sparc has been dropped from testing, please decide on the fate
> > of sparc in unstable.
> 
> Are there still people interested in the current sparc port?

Interested yes, as I do have and run sparc hardware.

> I don't remember seeing any replies to the release team's concers
> regarding sparc, so my first impression is that people are no longer
> working on it...

I was the only one who really showed interested last year, but I must
admit, I haven't found much time for e.g. reading debian-sparc@ldo.

I already mentioned it back then: While I can test stuff and report
bugs as I notice them, I can neither fix compiler nor kernel issues.
And we do have quite some of them on sparc in the meanwhile. (Less on
sparc than sparc64 though.)

I hurts to say this since it's the architecture I grew up with on
Unix, but that defacto means that there's no one who _can_ and will
care about tool chain and kernel issues for sparc unless some further
people have stepped up. (Which doesn't seem the case as I read from
Philipp's and Ansgar's mails.)

> In that case I don't think we should keep it in the archive much
> longer.

I'd really appreciate if sparc would be kept in the archive, but I
fear that's not realistic. So I think the best is probably to move it
to Debian Ports. :-(

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `'   |  1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486  202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
  `-    |  4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329  6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5

Message #28 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Yaroslav Halchenko <debian@onerussian.com>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 22:14:03 -0400

First of all -- thanks everyone who previously helped to maintain SPARC
Debian.  IMHO your work was very useful!

FWIW -- I have got acquainted with sparc originally solely due to
the need to troubleshoot FTBFS of some packages I maintain on this
"alien" to me platform... But probably in a somewhat a masochistic way I
got to like sparc -- at times those FTBFS due to e.g. failing unittests
I exercise at build time pointed to real problems with the code, which
otherwise would have waited possibly for years to be encountered by
users consciously, while may be still getting some (incorrect) output
without causing the entire program/pipeline to blow.

For that I started to maintain now 2 sparc boxes as a part of the test
build farm where I provide CI for some popular projects I maintain --
and found it being extremely useful.  Developers can easily find access
to x86 boxes for testing but not to such boxes of less commodity.

I have not been using those two sparc boxes for anything else besides
CI, BUT I got to like them -- despite their respectful age they remain
quite performant making me consider employing similar retirees to
serve as regular 'servers' for occasional local needs.

With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to
stop  providing similar "unique" testing opportunity for those projects,
which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs
seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more "geeky gratitude"
for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support.

P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some
'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities... usually
core 'computer architecture' courses are too abstract to promote
participating in hands-on experiences such as fixing specific
architecture-specific issues in compilers... but may be at more advanced
levels Debian's breadth might intrigue some scholars, and hopefully
bring at least some fresh blood to Debian.  (was more of thinking out
loud than anything practically useful I guess).

-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D.
http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org
Senior Research Associate,     Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept.
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik        

Message #33 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Frans van Berckel" <fberckel@xs4all.nl>

To: "Yaroslav Halchenko" <debian@onerussian.com>

Cc: 745938@bugs.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 06:07:54 +0200

Are we still able to move on with Debian Sparc64 @ debian-ports.org?
Creating a bootable minimal ISO would help?

https://wiki.debian.org/Sparc64

Thanks,

Frans van Berckel

Message #38 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>

To: Yaroslav Halchenko <debian@onerussian.com>, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 11:50:28 +0200

Hi,

On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
> With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to
> stop  providing similar "unique" testing opportunity for those projects,
> which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs
> seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more "geeky gratitude"
> for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support.

Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not
enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and
to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is
currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to
the release teams concerns (see all the "bits from the release team"
mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release).

Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but
he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1].

  [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html>

This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to
keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a
possible replacement).

> P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some
> 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities...

I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can
actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to
start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I
understand: arm*, mips*, ...

Ansgar

Message #43 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Joël BERTRAND <joel.bertrand@systella.fr>, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 12:58:05 +0200

Le 29/04/2014 12:15, Joël BERTRAND a écrit :
> Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit :
>> Hi,
>
>     Hello,
>
>> On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
>>> With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to
>>> stop  providing similar "unique" testing opportunity for those 
>>> projects,
>>> which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs
>>> seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more "geeky gratitude"
>>> for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support.
>>
>> Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not
>> enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and
>> to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is
>> currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to
>> the release teams concerns (see all the "bits from the release team"
>> mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release).
>>
>> Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but
>> he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1].
>>
>>    [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html>
>
>     It's the main problem. There are too much kernel issues to use 
> Linux on sparc/sparc64. Last sparc kernel maintainers were leon4 
> developers and last sparc64 stable kernel was 2.6.32. I have a lot of 
> sparc/sparc64 servers (sun4u _and_ sun4v) and today, no one is stable 
> enough. All servers randomly crash and I have a lot of strange issues 
> with LSI SAS adapters on Txxxx.
>
>     We can do best effort to remain sparc/sparc64 alive, but without a 
> real effort to keep kernel usable and stable, there is no solution.
>
>     Today, only four T1000 runs on Linux. I think that I will 
> reinstall these servers with xBSD as soon as possible.
>
Hi Joël, could you point the bugs for the kernel that is plagging you.
Maybe, we can do a call-to-arm on lkml to check if old porter wants to 
revive the flame or attract some new one.

As a matter of fact, two new bugs have been unveiled with a little bit 
of time that shows only on sparc.
If think there is still knowledge inside the community.

I'll step up but I don't have much knowledge about the internals of 
SPARC, however, I spend more than my share on linux.
I'm neither dd nor d-porter.
I'm willing to learn.

Cheers.

Seb

Message #48 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Joël BERTRAND <joel.bertrand@systella.fr>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:36:31 +0200

Le 29/04/2014 12:58, Sébastien Bernard a écrit :
> Le 29/04/2014 12:15, Joël BERTRAND a écrit :
>> Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit :
>>> Hi,
>>
>>     Hello,
>>
>>> On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
>>>> With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to
>>>> stop  providing similar "unique" testing opportunity for those
>>>> projects,
>>>> which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs
>>>> seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more "geeky gratitude"
>>>> for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support.
>>>
>>> Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not
>>> enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and
>>> to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is
>>> currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to
>>> the release teams concerns (see all the "bits from the release team"
>>> mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release).
>>>
>>> Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but
>>> he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1].
>>>
>>>    [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html>
>>
>>     It's the main problem. There are too much kernel issues to use
>> Linux on sparc/sparc64. Last sparc kernel maintainers were leon4
>> developers and last sparc64 stable kernel was 2.6.32. I have a lot of
>> sparc/sparc64 servers (sun4u _and_ sun4v) and today, no one is stable
>> enough. All servers randomly crash and I have a lot of strange issues
>> with LSI SAS adapters on Txxxx.
>>
>>     We can do best effort to remain sparc/sparc64 alive, but without a
>> real effort to keep kernel usable and stable, there is no solution.
>>
>>     Today, only four T1000 runs on Linux. I think that I will
>> reinstall these servers with xBSD as soon as possible.
>>
> Hi Joël, could you point the bugs for the kernel that is plagging you.
> Maybe, we can do a call-to-arm on lkml to check if old porter wants to
> revive the flame or attract some new one.

	Strange deadlocks on all sun4u and sun4v. I have tried to bissect 
without any result and if I have tried to debug sparc/sparc64 kernels 
some time ago, today I haven't time enough to fix these bugs.

	sun4m : last stable kernel was 2.4.21. All 2.4 kernels crash with OPB 
Watchdog Reset or NMI interrupt messages. HyperSPARC support is unusable.

	sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. All kernels since 2.6.33 hang 
with a deadlock or similar issue (UP and SMP) on U1E, U2, U5, U60, U80, 
U420, Blade2000. I have done some bug reports to David Miller some time ago.

	sun4v : I have several T1000 for a long time. I haven't seen any stable 
kernel on these servers. These T1000 randomly crash and I never seen 
uptime greater thant one month. I have to hard reboot these servers with 
ILOM powercycle command (!). Same constations with T2 CPU.

	I have two Sun fire T1000 and two Sun enterprise T1000. On one of these 
servers, I'm unable to boot recent kernel (last bootable kernel is 
2.6.32), as SAS LSI adapter driver is totaly broken. I don't understand 
as both Sunfire have the same P/N. I'm sure that it's not an faulty 
hardware as I have run SunVTS to check. I have done some BR directly to 
David Miller without any result. The same driver is totaly broken in SMP 
between 3.2 and 3.12 kernel and I have patched official kernel to boot 
on my Enterprise with all CPU threads !

> As a matter of fact, two new bugs have been unveiled with a little bit
> of time that shows only on sparc.
> If think there is still knowledge inside the community.
>
> I'll step up but I don't have much knowledge about the internals of
> SPARC, however, I spend more than my share on linux.
> I'm neither dd nor d-porter.
> I'm willing to learn.

	Regards,

	JKB

Message #53 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>, Yaroslav Halchenko <debian@onerussian.com>, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:15:53 +0200

Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
>> With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to
>> stop  providing similar "unique" testing opportunity for those projects,
>> which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs
>> seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more "geeky gratitude"
>> for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support.
> Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not
> enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and
> to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is
> currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to
> the release teams concerns (see all the "bits from the release team"
> mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release).
We are fixing issues at this moment.

I have some problem to know the bugs numbers that are high priority and 
sparc-only,
however, I have time and a little knowledge to check the problems.
There are so many ML to read, I may have missed important call, but 
reading all mails from 2 years ago is a bit too much.

If you need maintainer for sparc, just tell how to become one.
IMHO,  the sparc architecture needs more tests and bug filling than 
knowledgeable people.


>
> Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but
> he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1].
>
>    [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html>
>
> This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to
> keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a
> possible replacement).
>
>> P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some
>> 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities...
> I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can
> actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to
> start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I
> understand: arm*, mips*, ...
>
> Ansgar
>
>
Why not dropping the m68k port too then ?
I thought that debian was opensource and not driven by market share or 
anything like that ?

Seb

Message #58 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Adam <adam@spoontech.biz>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Hardware for SPARC

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 21:55:20 +0930

I have some hardware (T2000 and SunBlade 2000) that I'm happy to offer 
free of charge if it would help the project.

Someone would need to organise couriers though.

Adam

Message #63 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:02:00 +0200

Hi Sébastien,

Sébastien Bernard wrote:
> Why not dropping the m68k port too then ?

It has been droppend many years ago.

P.S.: I appreciate your effort a lot! Thanks!

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `'   |  1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486  202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
  `-    |  4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329  6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5

Message #68 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:32:20 +0200

Le 29/04/2014 15:02, Axel Beckert a écrit :
> Hi Sébastien,
>
> Sébastien Bernard wrote:
>> Why not dropping the m68k port too then ?
> It has been droppend many years ago.
>
> P.S.: I appreciate your effort a lot! Thanks!
>
> 		Regards, Axel
My mistake, I thought the M68k was stil an official port.
Anyway, SPARC hardware is cheap to buy.

I saw on ebay V240/V440 for 50/100 euros and even T5520 for 280 dollars.

So, it's quite easy to lay a hand on sparc hardware.

S. Bernard

Message #73 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Chase Rayfield <cusbrar2@yahoo.com>

To: "745938@bugs.debian.org" <745938@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Sun4v Stable kernels...

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 09:55:25 -0700 (PDT)

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

I have 3.9.11 running very stable on a T2000 3.9.11+ hangs of course untill you get to the 3.15 series. Its had at least a month of uptime befoe there was a power outage (I don't have it on a UPS).  3.15 is supposed to be stable again but I haven't checked I will in the coming days. Kernels in between those releases can be booted for testing by disabling SMP at boot time as that is what is causing deadlocks. I currently have 6 days of uptime with quite alot of emerging of packages as I have been working though getting most of my packages recompiled with LTO.

I am not running Debian but rather Gentoo. I would like to see Debian keep Sparc support though and also would like to see Gentoo and Debian benefit from cooperation on such problems.


The biggest issue on my wishlist is a usable build of Icedtea. I seems Debian has issues there as well. I've mostly been doing a few bug reports for gentoo helping track down why cmake was failing to build and such.

-Chase Rayfield / cb88

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #78 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:29:37 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:36:31 +0200, Joël BERTRAND wrote:
> 	sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. [...]
> 
> 	sun4v : I have several T1000 for a long time. I haven't seen any stable 
> kernel on these servers.

Maybe someone could think about a k*bsd-sparc port ;)

Linux seems to be dropping, or worsening in its support for, old
hardware, and some other things:  reiserfs and ufs for example are going
away post-wheezy.  It makes sense, if the old code becomes a burden to
maintain and few people still test it.

systemd takes a similar attitude to obsoleting old software interfaces.

But I'm of the opinion that 'ideal' code should not bitrot:  new
interfaces should extend or complement existing ones, drivers should be
maximally self-contained with no dependencies on kernel internals.  Code
for legacy hardware ought to be skipped at runtime with ideally just a
single conditional branch somewhere with practically no overhead.

Dropping support for old hardware sounds like a substitute for the kind
of refactoring that ought to be happening instead.  OpenBSD in
particular seems to be developed this way so that it is continually
proven robust on as many platforms as possible.

I would think the average age of a working computer is *increasing* over
time.  Old hardware may have relatively higher energy costs than new,
but still there is significant energy used in producing or
recycling/disposing of it.  And software ought to run more efficiently
on it over time, as optimisers and our ways of programming become smarter.

The above thinking is how I got interested in having an alternative
Debian kernel such as kFreeBSD.

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, attachment)]

Message #83 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>

Cc: 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:55:03 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>wrote:

> On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:36:31 +0200, Joël BERTRAND wrote:
> >       sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. [...]
> >
> >       sun4v : I have several T1000 for a long time. I haven't seen any
> stable
> > kernel on these servers.
>
> Maybe someone could think about a k*bsd-sparc port ;)
>
> Generally speaking, I think if you're just going for NTP server, this is
fine.

However, I like pushing the hardware combinations to weird extremes. I like
putting hardware into non-x86 machines and seeing where the drivers succeed
and fail. My favorite example is getting Mesa3D to function. This is
basically a no-go on most of the *BSDs because they just don't have the
driver support. If someone can demonstrate a *BSD/sparc running X and
accelerated OpenGL using any non-Sun GPU made from 2000 forward, I might
consider using a *BSD kernel, but so far, it seems all the development for
FOSS GPU drivers is on Linux.

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #88 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 22:12:07 +0200

Le 26/04/2014 21:33, Ralf Treinen a écrit :
> Hello,
>
> we currently have in unstable/main/sparc precisely 35491 packages, of
> a total of 40634 available packages, that cannot be installed in the
> current version of unstable:
>
> % dose-debcheck --fg Packages --deb-ignore-essential
> background-packages: 0
> foreground-packages: 40634
> total-packages: 40634
> broken-packages: 35491
>
> The most common cause seems to be that libgcc1 1:4.8.2-19 depends on
> gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.2-19), and version 4.8.2-20 is in the archive. I just
> found this when I investigated why the daily run of my dose-debcheck script
> explodes the last 3 days.
>
> -Ralf.
>
>
I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken. libstdc++ 
and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
Something broken on -20 and -21.

My .002 contribution.

Seb

Message #93 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Brad Spengler <spender@grsecurity.net>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 21:04:30 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Just wanted to represent here as well.  I'm still actively supporting
grsecurity for sparc64 and have a SunFire V220, and three Blade 2500
workstations here (one being used for parts).  Overall, the sparc port has
worked very well for me for the past 9 years or so -- thanks to everyone
involved.  I've had a few problems over the years, some reported by others
like the installer that was broken for some time due to a panic in newer
NMI code, others including some unaligned kernel accesses and the faulty
TSB code that made non-executable data executable I reported myself.
I would be very sad if support for sparc were to go away!

I don't have the background or time to maintain any sparc packages as
grsecurity already takes up the majority of my free time, but I'd be happy
to assist in any other way I can, including buying hardware for maintainers.
Just let me know.  I'd planned for some time to port PaX's KERNEXEC feature
to sparc, so hopefully Debian's port will stick around long enough to be
able to use it :)

Thanks,
-Brad

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Message #98 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 08:27:32 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

I kicked off a gcc build (gcc-4.8_4.8.2-21) last night. It didn't have an
errors for me. I now have a bunch of *.deb files:

figgles@ghost:~/src$ ls -1 *.deb
cpp-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
g++-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
g++-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcc-4.8-base_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcc-4.8-locales_4.8.2-21_all.deb
gcc-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcc-4.8-plugin-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcc-4.8-source_4.8.2-21_all.deb
gcc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcj-4.8-jdk_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcj-4.8-jre-headless_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcj-4.8-jre-lib_4.8.2-21_all.deb
gcj-4.8-jre_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gcj-4.8-source_4.8.2-21_all.deb
gcj-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gdc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gfortran-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gfortran-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gobjc++-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gobjc++-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gobjc-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
gobjc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64asan0-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64asan0_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64gcc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64gfortran-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64objc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64stdc++-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
lib64stdc++6-4.8-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libasan0-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libasan0_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgcc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgcj14-awt_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgcj14-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgcj14-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgcj14_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libgfortran-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libobjc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libstdc++-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libstdc++-4.8-doc_4.8.2-21_all.deb
libstdc++-4.8-pic_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
libstdc++6-4.8-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb




On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:

> Le 26/04/2014 21:33, Ralf Treinen a écrit :
>
>  Hello,
>>
>> we currently have in unstable/main/sparc precisely 35491 packages, of
>> a total of 40634 available packages, that cannot be installed in the
>> current version of unstable:
>>
>> % dose-debcheck --fg Packages --deb-ignore-essential
>> background-packages: 0
>> foreground-packages: 40634
>> total-packages: 40634
>> broken-packages: 35491
>>
>> The most common cause seems to be that libgcc1 1:4.8.2-19 depends on
>> gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.2-19), and version 4.8.2-20 is in the archive. I just
>> found this when I investigated why the daily run of my dose-debcheck
>> script
>> explodes the last 3 days.
>>
>> -Ralf.
>>
>>
>>  I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken. libstdc++
> and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
> The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
> Something broken on -20 and -21.
>
> My .002 contribution.
>
> Seb
>
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
> listmaster@lists.debian.org
> Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53600797.2010700@nerim.net
>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #103 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

Cc: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 09:34:34 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

I have also been able to build the gcc 4.8.2-21 packages as well. I am not
sure what is causing the build systems so much grief when it comes to
building these packages.

Cheers,
Kieron


On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Patrick Baggett
<baggett.patrick@gmail.com>wrote:

> I kicked off a gcc build (gcc-4.8_4.8.2-21) last night. It didn't have an
> errors for me. I now have a bunch of *.deb files:
>
> figgles@ghost:~/src$ ls -1 *.deb
> cpp-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> g++-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> g++-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcc-4.8-base_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcc-4.8-locales_4.8.2-21_all.deb
> gcc-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcc-4.8-plugin-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcc-4.8-source_4.8.2-21_all.deb
> gcc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcj-4.8-jdk_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcj-4.8-jre-headless_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcj-4.8-jre-lib_4.8.2-21_all.deb
> gcj-4.8-jre_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gcj-4.8-source_4.8.2-21_all.deb
> gcj-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gdc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gfortran-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gfortran-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gobjc++-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gobjc++-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gobjc-4.8-multilib_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> gobjc-4.8_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64asan0-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64asan0_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64gcc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64gfortran-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64objc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64stdc++-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> lib64stdc++6-4.8-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libasan0-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libasan0_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgcc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgcj14-awt_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgcj14-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgcj14-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgcj14_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libgfortran-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libobjc-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libstdc++-4.8-dev_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libstdc++-4.8-doc_4.8.2-21_all.deb
> libstdc++-4.8-pic_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
> libstdc++6-4.8-dbg_4.8.2-21_sparc.deb
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:
>
>> Le 26/04/2014 21:33, Ralf Treinen a écrit :
>>
>>  Hello,
>>>
>>> we currently have in unstable/main/sparc precisely 35491 packages, of
>>> a total of 40634 available packages, that cannot be installed in the
>>> current version of unstable:
>>>
>>> % dose-debcheck --fg Packages --deb-ignore-essential
>>> background-packages: 0
>>> foreground-packages: 40634
>>> total-packages: 40634
>>> broken-packages: 35491
>>>
>>> The most common cause seems to be that libgcc1 1:4.8.2-19 depends on
>>> gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.2-19), and version 4.8.2-20 is in the archive. I just
>>> found this when I investigated why the daily run of my dose-debcheck
>>> script
>>> explodes the last 3 days.
>>>
>>> -Ralf.
>>>
>>>
>>>  I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken.
>> libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
>> The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>> Something broken on -20 and -21.
>>
>> My .002 contribution.
>>
>> Seb
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
>> listmaster@lists.debian.org
>> Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53600797.2010700@nerim.net
>>
>>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #108 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 08:39:26 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

>
>
>>  I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken. libstdc++
> and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
> The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
> Something broken on -20 and -21.
>
>
Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev / libstdc++-dev, but
not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++

And yeah, libgcc1 just isn't built, which is a major problem. Maybe we need
to look at diffs in the "debian" directory.

Patrick

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #113 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 15:42:39 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Le 30/04/2014 15:39, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>
>
>     I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken.
>     libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
>     The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>     Something broken on -20 and -21.
>
>
> Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev / libstdc++-dev, 
> but not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++
>
> And yeah, libgcc1 just isn't built, which is a major problem. Maybe we 
> need to look at diffs in the "debian" directory.
>
> Patrick
Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on 
the sparc that blocks the generation of the libraries.

Seb

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #118 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

Cc: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 09:50:48 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

What is also weird is you have the debug package for it. So I am sure it
compiled I think there might be something wrong with the packaging for it.


On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Patrick Baggett
<baggett.patrick@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>>>  I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken.
>> libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
>> The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>> Something broken on -20 and -21.
>>
>>
> Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev / libstdc++-dev, but
> not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++
>
> And yeah, libgcc1 just isn't built, which is a major problem. Maybe we
> need to look at diffs in the "debian" directory.
>
> Patrick
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #123 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 09:19:55 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:

>  Le 30/04/2014 15:39, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>
>
>>>  I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken.
>> libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build libgcc1.
>> The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>> Something broken on -20 and -21.
>>
>>
>  Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev / libstdc++-dev, but
> not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++
>
>  And yeah, libgcc1 just isn't built, which is a major problem. Maybe we
> need to look at diffs in the "debian" directory.
>
>  Patrick
>
> Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
> Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on the
> sparc that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>

Is there a direct way to view the changelog and/or diff from the web?

Patrick

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #128 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 17:15:10 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Le 30/04/2014 16:19, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net 
> <mailto:sbernard@nerim.net>> wrote:
>
>     Le 30/04/2014 15:39, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>>
>>
>>         I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is
>>         broken. libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are
>>         build libgcc1.
>>         The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>>         Something broken on -20 and -21.
>>
>>
>>     Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev /
>>     libstdc++-dev, but not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++
>>
>>     And yeah, libgcc1 just isn't built, which is a major problem.
>>     Maybe we need to look at diffs in the "debian" directory.
>>
>>     Patrick
>     Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>     Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done
>     something on the sparc that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>
>
> Is there a direct way to view the changelog and/or diff from the web?
>
> Patrick
I found this url :

http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/g/gcc-4.8/gcc-4.8_4.8.2-21_changelog

Here's the entry I suspect for all our troubles:

gcc-4.8 (4.8.2-20) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Update to SVN 20140423 (r209678) from the gcc-4_8-branch.
  * Explicitly configure with --disable-multilib on sparc64 when no
    multilibs are requested (Helmut Grohne). Closes: #743342.
  * Update powerpcspe patches for the branch (Helmut Grohne). Closes: 
#743718.
  * Remove more mudflap left overs. Addresses: #742606.
  * Adjust common_libs, libraries common to GCC 4.9.
  * Disable running the testsuite on kfreebsd, hangs the buildds.
  * Stop build packages built by GCC 4.9.

 -- Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>  Wed, 23 Apr 2014 11:13:07 +0200

Seb

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #133 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 19:01:08 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On 30/04/14 15:19, Patrick Baggett wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net> wrote:
>     Le 30/04/2014 15:39, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>>         I tried to build the gcc-4.8-4.8.2-20 and the build is broken.
>>         libstdc++ and lib64stdc++ are not build, neither are build
>>         libgcc1.
>>         The last good build (with the missing libraries) is 4.8.2-16.
>>         Something broken on -20 and -21.
>>
>>     Oh, I see what you're saying. I get lib64stdc++-dev /
>>     libstdc++-dev, but not the base lib64stdc++/libstdc++

>     Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>     Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something
>     on the sparc that blocks the generation of the libraries.
> 
> Is there a direct way to view the changelog and/or diff from the web?

I don't think so.  So I grabbed both versions from snapshots.d.o and
compared them with debdiff.  Ignoring src/ and debian/patches/ I got the
attached diff.  The relevant change for sparc is in the last hunk.

After an initial attempt in 4.8.2-19 which didn't work due to a typo,
version 4.8.2-20 disabled multilib for sparc64.  I think maybe
not-building some of the packages you mention could be deliberate and/or
their names have changed.

Possibly the package's build dependencies need to be different now on
sparc and/or sparc64.  (e.g. perhaps 32-bit sparc build should no longer
build-depend on lib64gcc1?)

The old packages likely also need to be de-crufted by ftpmaster
("ANAIS"?) or else the whole source package will be considered
"out-of-date" on that arch.

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org

[gcc-4.8_4.8.2-19_4.8.2-20.dsc (text/plain, attachment)]

Message #138 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 20:13:25 +0200

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
> Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
> Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on the sparc
> that blocks the generation of the libraries.

A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8. As there is
no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.

https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc

So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get gcc-4.9 to
build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8 version from
before the change, as newer version are not functional without the packages
from gcc-4.9.

BTW this is listed in the gcc-4.8 changelog as
  * Stop build packages built by GCC 4.9.


Cheers,

Ivo

Message #143 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>

Cc: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:36:24 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
> > Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
> > Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on
> the sparc
> > that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>
> A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8. As there
> is
> no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.
>
> https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc
>
> So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get gcc-4.9 to
> build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8 version from
> before the change, as newer version are not functional without the packages
> from gcc-4.9.
>
> ???
I thought jessie was using gcc-4.8 and not gcc-4.9

OK, so we additionally need to look into why gcc-4.9 is not installable?

Patrick

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #148 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>

Cc: Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 23:04:45 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Le 30/04/2014 20:36, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be 
> <mailto:ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
>     > Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>     > Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done
>     something on the sparc
>     > that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>
>     A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8.
>     As there is
>     no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.
>
>     https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc
>
>     So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get
>     gcc-4.9 to
>     build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8
>     version from
>     before the change, as newer version are not functional without the
>     packages
>     from gcc-4.9.
>
> ???
> I thought jessie was using gcc-4.8 and not gcc-4.9
>
> OK, so we additionally need to look into why gcc-4.9 is not installable?
>
> Patrick

No, we don't. Period.

I built the gcc-4.8-4.8-19, and all the binaries are there.
I'm going to involve the gcc maintainer cause what they did broke 
completely the build be it jessie or sid.

We have libgcc1, lib64gcc1, libstdc++6,  and libstdc++6 available from 
the repositories in version 4.8.2-19.
But, the new builds -20 and -21 have overriden all the other packages 
from -19 since they have been build ok.
So, now, we have nothing to install because gcc-base-4.8_4.8.2-20 
depends on libgcc1-4.8.2_4.8.2-20 which isn't build (this is the message 
from apt-get).

And this is not solvable, we're halfway through, with partial -19 
packages and missing packages -20.

And if you think it has zero impact, think twice. The debootstrap is not 
able to build a sid install because of this.
So, meanwhile, I'll setup a mini directory with the packages availables 
(I need to remember how to setup a debian repository again).

All in all, this broken package has blocked the complete buildd, since 
there is no more libgcc1 and no more libstdc++ installable.

Did I say there is no gcc-4.9 ?

Here is the recipe for disaster for sparc.

Seb

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #153 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 17:21:48 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

BTW, the sparc buildd looks like gcc 4-8.2-21 is successful and so is
gcc-4.9.0-1. I've installed them from sid. Crisis averted?

Patrick


On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:

>  Le 30/04/2014 20:36, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
>> > Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>> > Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on
>> the sparc
>> > that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>>
>>  A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8. As
>> there is
>> no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.
>>
>> https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc
>>
>> So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get gcc-4.9 to
>> build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8 version
>> from
>> before the change, as newer version are not functional without the
>> packages
>> from gcc-4.9.
>>
>>  ???
> I thought jessie was using gcc-4.8 and not gcc-4.9
>
>  OK, so we additionally need to look into why gcc-4.9 is not installable?
>
>  Patrick
>
>
> No, we don't. Period.
>
> I built the gcc-4.8-4.8-19, and all the binaries are there.
> I'm going to involve the gcc maintainer cause what they did broke
> completely the build be it jessie or sid.
>
> We have libgcc1, lib64gcc1, libstdc++6,  and libstdc++6 available from the
> repositories in version 4.8.2-19.
> But, the new builds -20 and -21 have overriden all the other packages from
> -19 since they have been build ok.
> So, now, we have nothing to install because gcc-base-4.8_4.8.2-20 depends
> on libgcc1-4.8.2_4.8.2-20 which isn't build (this is the message from
> apt-get).
>
> And this is not solvable, we're halfway through, with partial -19 packages
> and missing packages -20.
>
> And if you think it has zero impact, think twice. The debootstrap is not
> able to build a sid install because of this.
> So, meanwhile, I'll setup a mini directory with the packages availables (I
> need to remember how to setup a debian repository again).
>
> All in all, this broken package has blocked the complete buildd, since
> there is no more libgcc1 and no more libstdc++ installable.
>
> Did I say there is no gcc-4.9 ?
>
> Here is the recipe for disaster for sparc.
>
> Seb
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #158 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com>

To: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

Cc: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 19:10:43 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Well it is a good start. =D

There are still complaints, though haven't seen the bug reports, that
modern kernel's are unstable on certain peices of hardware. Personally I
can't reproduce any of these issues, I have rolled out the latest kernel
for a while now on some of my sparc systems, my T2000 has an uptime of
about 80days and it's running wheezy but using a vanilla 3.13.9 build.
There is also some problems with the kernel hanging in the early stages of
the boot process, though once again I have not seen this. What the sparc
port needs are a couple of people to become familiar with the Debian build
process and to find major bugs report and fix them.

I haven't checked but I think that SILO is currently a version or two ahead
of what debian is using for it's installs. That might be the issue.

Wish I had more time to invest in this.

-Kieron


On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 6:21 PM, Patrick Baggett
<baggett.patrick@gmail.com>wrote:

> BTW, the sparc buildd looks like gcc 4-8.2-21 is successful and so is
> gcc-4.9.0-1. I've installed them from sid. Crisis averted?
>
> Patrick
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:
>
>>  Le 30/04/2014 20:36, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
>>> > Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>>> > Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something on
>>> the sparc
>>> > that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>>>
>>>  A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8. As
>>> there is
>>> no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.
>>>
>>> https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc
>>>
>>> So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get gcc-4.9
>>> to
>>> build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8 version
>>> from
>>> before the change, as newer version are not functional without the
>>> packages
>>> from gcc-4.9.
>>>
>>>  ???
>> I thought jessie was using gcc-4.8 and not gcc-4.9
>>
>>  OK, so we additionally need to look into why gcc-4.9 is not installable?
>>
>>  Patrick
>>
>>
>> No, we don't. Period.
>>
>> I built the gcc-4.8-4.8-19, and all the binaries are there.
>> I'm going to involve the gcc maintainer cause what they did broke
>> completely the build be it jessie or sid.
>>
>> We have libgcc1, lib64gcc1, libstdc++6,  and libstdc++6 available from
>> the repositories in version 4.8.2-19.
>> But, the new builds -20 and -21 have overriden all the other packages
>> from -19 since they have been build ok.
>> So, now, we have nothing to install because gcc-base-4.8_4.8.2-20 depends
>> on libgcc1-4.8.2_4.8.2-20 which isn't build (this is the message from
>> apt-get).
>>
>> And this is not solvable, we're halfway through, with partial -19
>> packages and missing packages -20.
>>
>> And if you think it has zero impact, think twice. The debootstrap is not
>> able to build a sid install because of this.
>> So, meanwhile, I'll setup a mini directory with the packages availables
>> (I need to remember how to setup a debian repository again).
>>
>> All in all, this broken package has blocked the complete buildd, since
>> there is no more libgcc1 and no more libstdc++ installable.
>>
>> Did I say there is no gcc-4.9 ?
>>
>> Here is the recipe for disaster for sparc.
>>
>> Seb
>>
>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #163 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com>

To: Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com>

Cc: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>, Ralf Treinen <treinen@free.fr>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, "debian-sparc@lists.debian.org" <debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 19:40:15 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

I have SILO v1.4.14, but it has the git [1] patches from 2012-08-19, which
includes quite a few fixes from the 2008-06-12 release. Particularly, it
includes a number of ext2/ext4 boot fixes and some sun4v and sun4u boot
fixes. The remaining patches after that are for "tilo" which is some kind
of TFTP loader.

TL;DR - though it isn't the newest, it should be more or less up to date
for bug fixes.

[1] http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/davem/silo.git/log/



On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Kieron Gillespie <ciaran.gillespie@gmail.com
> wrote:

> Well it is a good start. =D
>
> There are still complaints, though haven't seen the bug reports, that
> modern kernel's are unstable on certain peices of hardware. Personally I
> can't reproduce any of these issues, I have rolled out the latest kernel
> for a while now on some of my sparc systems, my T2000 has an uptime of
> about 80days and it's running wheezy but using a vanilla 3.13.9 build.
> There is also some problems with the kernel hanging in the early stages of
> the boot process, though once again I have not seen this. What the sparc
> port needs are a couple of people to become familiar with the Debian
> build process and to find major bugs report and fix them.
>
> I haven't checked but I think that SILO is currently a version or two
> ahead of what debian is using for it's installs. That might be the issue.
>
> Wish I had more time to invest in this.
>
> -Kieron
>
>
> On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 6:21 PM, Patrick Baggett <baggett.patrick@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> BTW, the sparc buildd looks like gcc 4-8.2-21 is successful and so is
>> gcc-4.9.0-1. I've installed them from sid. Crisis averted?
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>wrote:
>>
>>>  Le 30/04/2014 20:36, Patrick Baggett a écrit :
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 1:13 PM, Ivo De Decker <ivo.dedecker@ugent.be>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 03:42:39PM +0200, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
>>>> > Indeed, the last good build seems to be gcc-4.8-4.8.2-19.
>>>> > Look at the changelog for the -20 they seems to have done something
>>>> on the sparc
>>>> > that blocks the generation of the libraries.
>>>>
>>>>  A number of binaries are now built by gcc-4.9 instead of gcc-4.8. As
>>>> there is
>>>> no build of gcc-4.9 on sparc, these binaries are missing.
>>>>
>>>> https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=gcc-4.9&arch=sparc
>>>>
>>>> So if you want to fix the sparc issue, you probably need to get gcc-4.9
>>>> to
>>>> build there. When doing that, you need to start from a gcc-4.8 version
>>>> from
>>>> before the change, as newer version are not functional without the
>>>> packages
>>>> from gcc-4.9.
>>>>
>>>>  ???
>>> I thought jessie was using gcc-4.8 and not gcc-4.9
>>>
>>>  OK, so we additionally need to look into why gcc-4.9 is not
>>> installable?
>>>
>>>  Patrick
>>>
>>>
>>> No, we don't. Period.
>>>
>>> I built the gcc-4.8-4.8-19, and all the binaries are there.
>>> I'm going to involve the gcc maintainer cause what they did broke
>>> completely the build be it jessie or sid.
>>>
>>> We have libgcc1, lib64gcc1, libstdc++6,  and libstdc++6 available from
>>> the repositories in version 4.8.2-19.
>>> But, the new builds -20 and -21 have overriden all the other packages
>>> from -19 since they have been build ok.
>>> So, now, we have nothing to install because gcc-base-4.8_4.8.2-20
>>> depends on libgcc1-4.8.2_4.8.2-20 which isn't build (this is the message
>>> from apt-get).
>>>
>>> And this is not solvable, we're halfway through, with partial -19
>>> packages and missing packages -20.
>>>
>>> And if you think it has zero impact, think twice. The debootstrap is not
>>> able to build a sid install because of this.
>>> So, meanwhile, I'll setup a mini directory with the packages availables
>>> (I need to remember how to setup a debian repository again).
>>>
>>> All in all, this broken package has blocked the complete buildd, since
>>> there is no more libgcc1 and no more libstdc++ installable.
>>>
>>> Did I say there is no gcc-4.9 ?
>>>
>>> Here is the recipe for disaster for sparc.
>>>
>>> Seb
>>>
>>
>>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #168 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Hermann Lauer <Hermann.Lauer@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 13:27:07 +0200

Just to let all know: Here are Sun Enterprise 880,480,280 and 450
running wheezy (and still squeeze) fine, there are only minor issues with
those kernels (look at the linux sparc mailing list and in the debian BTS if
you are interested - or ask) here. In the small timeslots left I even
compiled sometimes vanilla kernels (make deb-pkg), and it's a pity
(but understandable) that jessie sparc will not be.

Huge thanks at this point to all the past releases sparc maintainers !  

Time is always the problem but if it helps I can offer hosting
of a build machine out of our Sun Enterprises, if that would help.

What is the maillist to follow sparc-port issues ?

Thanks, Hermann

-- 
Netzwerkadministration/Zentrale Dienste, Interdiziplinaeres 
Zentrum fuer wissenschaftliches Rechnen der Universitaet Heidelberg
IWR; INF 368; 69120 Heidelberg; Tel: (06221)54-8236 Fax: -5224
Email: Hermann.Lauer@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de

Message #173 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Bob Bib <bobbib@ukr.net>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 07 May 2014 17:06:03 +0300

AFAIK, the SPARC32 toolchain is no longer supported upstream,
while Debian 'sparc' port has only 32-bit userland,
with kernel 64 bit-only.

So from my point of view,
the 'sparc' port should be finally DROPPED
in favor of the 'sparc64' port
which should be migrated from debian-ports
into the official archives
(maybe, it should be initially put there in a 'safe' mode,
unstable-only, like the 'hurd' is now?)

----
Best wishes, Bob

Message #178 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org>

To: Bob Bib <bobbib@ukr.net>, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Wed, 7 May 2014 17:25:23 +0100

On 17:06, Bob Bib wrote:
> AFAIK, the SPARC32 toolchain is no longer supported upstream,
> while Debian 'sparc' port has only 32-bit userland,
> with kernel 64 bit-only.

A lot of people have repeated this like rumour, but were unable to
point me to something official when asked.  All I can find is this
statement:

https://release.debian.org/jessie/arch_qualify.html
| sparc
| Upstream Support
|
| According to the gcc maintainer 32bit code generation as we use it is
| no longer supported upstream and we should aim for a switch to 64bit
| userland anytime soon.

Actually confirming this with upstream would be a good idea IMHO before
acting on it.

sparc64 still lags way behind sparc (and even hurd-i386) in archive
coverage so likely that needs to be improved first:
http://buildd.debian-ports.org/stats/

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org

Message #183 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Yaroslav Halchenko <yoh@debian.org>

To: Sébastien Bernard <sbernard@nerim.net>

Cc: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>, 745938@bugs.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely

Date: Thu, 8 May 2014 10:05:18 -0400

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014, Sébastien Bernard wrote:
> >Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not
> >enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and
> >to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is
> >currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to
> >the release teams concerns (see all the "bits from the release team"
> >mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release).
> We are fixing issues at this moment.

> I have some problem to know the bugs numbers that are high priority
> and sparc-only,
> however, I have time and a little knowledge to check the problems.
> There are so many ML to read, I may have missed important call, but
> reading all mails from 2 years ago is a bit too much.

> If you need maintainer for sparc, just tell how to become one.
> IMHO,  the sparc architecture needs more tests and bug filling than
> knowledgeable people.

just to keep this thread going:  what could be the ultimate
prioritized list of issues with sparc to be resolved?  I believe we have
no arch tags in Debian BTS to filter easily...?

https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=sparc
might be handy but would take time to drill down the packages to
approach first

from my side -- I am already providing CI for few  upstream projects on
SPARC build boxes (under sid and wheezy) so they enter Debian sparc-ready.

> >This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to
> >keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a
> >possible replacement).

> >>P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some
> >>'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities...
> >I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can
> >actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to
> >start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I
> >understand: arm*, mips*, ...

> Why not dropping the m68k port too then ?

moreover eBay is full of cheap but nice sparc boxes which corporations
get rid of soon after official support terminates, so by tackling cheap
sparcs Debian  might at large support the architecture popular in
industry.

-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D.
http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org
Research Scientist,            Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept.
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik        

Message #188 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Rod Schnell <rods@mw-radio.com>

To: 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Thu, 21 May 2015 16:46:06 -0500

Good afternoon,

Being a late comer to SPARC and debian I'd like to put forth my limited 
abilities and equipment for the purpose of testing and maintenance.

I have a couple of SUN Netra240's which can be used for the purpose.

To do this I think I'd need some direction and guidance as to where to 
start and patience/understanding for "stupid" questions.  If anyone is 
willing to put up with my noob-ness (relatively speaking) let me know.

Thanks
Rod Schnell

Message #193 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Bob Bib <bobbib@ukr.net>

To: Artyom Tarasenko <atar4qemu@gmail.com>

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: life after Wheezy?

Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2015 01:25:07 +0300

On 23/07/15 11:56, Artyom Tarasenko wrote:
> Hi,
>
> is there a way to install something newer than Wheezy?
> Or install Wheezy and upgrade it to something newer?
> Any recommendations?

Hi,

probably wheezy -> sid (until "sparc" gets removed* from Sid).
After that, probably, only sid "sparc64" from debian-ports.

* The current situation is quite sad:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2015/07/msg00012.html
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=745938
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2014/04/msg00012.html

-- 
Best wishes,
Bob

Message #198 received at 745938-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>

To: 745938-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#745938: decide on the future of sparc in unstable

Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:36:02 +0200

Hi,

sparc was removed from unstable and experimental, see also [1].

Ansgar

  [1] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/07/msg00006.html>

Message #203 received at 745938@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Artyom Tarasenko <atar4qemu@gmail.com>

To: Bob Bib <bobbib@ukr.net>

Cc: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org, 745938@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: life after Wheezy?

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 12:09:33 +0200

Hi Bob,

On Sun, Jul 26, 2015 at 12:25 AM, Bob Bib <bobbib@ukr.net> wrote:
>> is there a way to install something newer than Wheezy?
>> Or install Wheezy and upgrade it to something newer?
>> Any recommendations?

> probably wheezy -> sid (until "sparc" gets removed* from Sid).
> After that, probably, only sid "sparc64" from debian-ports.

Thank you! I was not aware of the sparc64 port.
And now I guess I've missed the point where sparc was removed from sid.
Is there a way of switching to sparc64 port directly from wheezy?

http://popcon.debian.org/ shows there is one user of the sparc64 port.
Is it you?

Regards,
Artyom


-- 
Regards,
Artyom Tarasenko

SPARC and PPC PReP under qemu blog: http://tyom.blogspot.com/search/label/qemu

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