Hello Josh,
On Friday, May 16, 2014, 2:50:15 PM, you wrote:
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Al Dunsmuir
<al.dunsmuir(a)sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, May 16, 2014, 12:22:26 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
>> The powerpc secondary arch team has disabled all ppc32 builds in koji for
>> F21 and beyond:
>
>>
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/ppc/2014-May/002801.html
>
>> There's little point in keeping support for ppc32 support in the kernel
>> package when it will never be built. This also removes the -smp variant
>> and with_smp* support, as that was only used on ppc32.
>
> Josh,
>
> In the fedora-ppc list you will also find that there are a number of
> us who are attempting to keep support for ppc32 active, and restore
> the ability to create new installations.
Yes. I've commented on the thread.
> This may take the form of a remix - it has been suggested that we
talk
> to Fesco, this this seems to set a precedent on how x84 32-bit might
> be treated in the future.
I doubt that. i686 will most like go to a secondary arch status
like
ppc64 is today. ppc32 has been demoted even further down than
secondary arch, as the secondary arch team that was working on it no
longer wishes to do so.
In essence, ppc32 is now analogous to sparc and ia64 in Fedora.
I know someone who has sparc, alpha hardware. I'm not sure if they
have an ia64 box taking up space in a closet somewhere.
A core advantage for ppc32 is that one can still readily get hardware
for a quite reasonable price locally or on EBay.
Because of branding, I would certainly prefer that ppc32 remain under
the Fedora umbrella as a seconday-secondary tertiary architecture
rather than be forced to become a remix.
> We have no intention of preventing a successful Fedora 21
release for
> ppc64. A number of folks on the ppc64 team agree it is a useful goal
> (largely those with nostalgic feelings for vintage hardware). Others
> are more of the "take it out behind the barn and shoot it" category.
>
> Making it so that ppc32 does not get built by default is one thing,
Actually, it's a very very big thing. Those wishing to keep it
alive
now need to come up with their own build hardware and build enviroment
setup. This is by far the largest hurdle, and if it isn't done
quickly the ppc32 secondary-secondary (thirdary?) arch will quickly
fall behind and into disrepair.
I hope that we can prevent things from becoming as hopeless as sparc
and ia64. Being a viable separate secondary arch for older hardware
is certainly a better fate than a dead tertiary arch.
Some folks have volunteered to host the builds, and provide build
hardware. We'll see how that works out. If we do have to build outside
the Fedora systems, there are going to be security considerations.
As someone that actually was crazy enough to do this kind of thing
when ppc/ppc64 was originally dropped, I would highly recommend you
get on it immediately.
Trying. I likely spent too much time gathering a representative mix
of hardware. Lesson learned.
> but removing the ability to build ppc32 at all seems
excessive, and
> certainly premature given the current situation.
Which is why I sent it as a patch instead of simply committed it.
Discussion is requested. At a minimum though, I really would like to
drop the -smp flavor because it was of very limited use even when ppc
was a primary arch and it adds the most complication to the spec.
Thanks for clarifying that.
The problem with dropping smp is that I and other have smp hardware
that we would like to use. That is also likely the hardware that
would best be used for builds, should "build native" and lack of a
ppc32 cross compiler & binutils mean we can's use a ppc64 build host.
Al