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[RFC] To port rv32 to Debian

Hi,

Maybe you've noticed a discussion about porting rv32 on this mailing
list a few weeks ago. In the meantime, we,Gao Han<gaohan@iscas.ac.cn>
and me, have almost finished rebootstrap's[0] support for riscv32,
and already have its first users[1]. Given that, I hope to get more
suggestions or opinions before any next actions from here.

Why port riscv32?
------------------

In fact, I known the attitude toward 32-bit system from Debian
developer because it brings many maintenance burdens. In my initial
idea, the porting will be always existed in unofficial port. Under
such circumstances, I think the arch will not bring trouble to the
package maintainer. so we finally offer a limited, basic working
Debian riscv32 rootfs that does not include large packages like
Desktop app and I do not think it's sensible to run these programs
on rv32. On the other hand, since the arch is in the unofficial port,
the buildd machines can use qemu if there is not suitable rv32
hardware, but this is extremely the case.

As for why users will use riscv32, I think the cases of the mail[1]
is more convincing. But it seems the thread's main argument is
rv64ilp32 vs pure 32-bit IIUC. Anyway, we've seen the potential need
for rv32 userspace. I imagine that riscv32 will be more used on low
power RISC-V hardware, especially embed market.Yocto[2] and buildroot
are ideal tools for the embedded world but they are very clunky,
especially for beginners. From a distro's point of view, there is no
reason for us to give up this piece of potential users. In turn, I
hope this work can contribute a little to the ecological development
of RISC-V.

Rebootstrap support for riscv32 was done here without too much effort
we even can construct riscv32 rootfs with mmdebstrap[3], so this
proves that upstream support for riscv32 is already in good shape.
Surely some issues come from glibc, but we are trying to solve this
issue.

If the above arguments make sense, then we can move on to the
following topic.

Should to choose which ABI?
---------------------

Here I will listen to the opinions of various experts. In fact, what I
understand is more or less from documents rather than the real needs
of the industry. This time our bootstrap[0] is based on rv32gc, in
fact, it should not be difficult to rebootstrap based on rv32imac or
other ABI. It is impossible for us to meet the requirements of every
vendor but we maybe need to determine ourself ABI early so I can send
such patch to support riscv32 for gcc.

The worst scenario I can imagine is that it is not suited for porting
riscv32 at this time. In this case, I wonder if it is possible to at
least make rebootstrap support riscv32? In other words, I have to send
patchs to add support riscv32 for several key packages. so others can
quickly build their own Debian riscv32 repositories using rebootstrap.
Because helmut made it clear that any patch that will be merged needs
to be reported to the upstream at first.

The above is my idea of porting rv32 and the current situation.
If you think this work makes sense or have any other thoughts about
this please comment. Only by collaborating with more people, will be more valuable or easier. :) In fact, I got many valuable advice and help 
from manuel and helmut, thanks again.

Thanks in advance.

[0]: https://salsa.debian.org/vimerbf-guest/rebootstrap/-/tree/support_riscv32?ref_type=heads
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-riscv/20230518131013.3366406-1-guoren@kernel.org/
[2]: https://github.com/riscv/meta-riscv
[3]: https://github.com/yuzibo/riscv32

root@debian:~# uname -a
Linux debian 5.15.43 #1 SMP Mon May 8 14:53:14 +08 2023 riscv32 GNU/Linux
root@debian:~# neofetch
       _,met$$$$$gg.          root@debian
    ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       -----------
  ,g$$P"     """Y$$.".        OS: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) riscv32
 ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: riscv-virtio,qemu
',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:   Kernel: 5.15.43
`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$    Uptime: 19 hours, 30 mins
 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P    Packages: 138 (dpkg)
 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'    Shell: bash 5.2.15
 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'      Terminal: /dev/ttyS0
 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'         CPU: (1)
 `$$b      "-.__              Memory: 23MiB / 994MiB
  `Y$$
   `Y$$.
     `$$b.
       `Y$$b.
          `"Y$b._
              `"""
--
Regards,
--
  Bo YU

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