Re: Releasing linux/6.1.52-1 bookworm-security update without armel build, Image size problems
On Sat, Sep 09, 2023 at 11:42:45AM +0200, Bastian Blank wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Sat, Sep 09, 2023 at 11:13:56AM +0200, Paul Gevers wrote:
> > If we're now reaching the final limit and if it was foreseeable that we
> > would reach that limit, then yes it would have made sense to drop armel
> > *before* the bookworm release, but alas. If the kernel team can't support
> > the kernel on armel, than armel shouldn't be a release architecture for
> > trixie. If it's only some devices, than we "just" need to communicate that
> > clearly.
>
> We have two armel kernel currently:
> - "rpi", for Raspberry Pi 1 and related devices.
>
> The second one is for the original Raspberry Pi 1 type. There we don't
> have any size limits, as the kernel is loaded from a file system.
> However those systems contain a ARMv6 CPU. So our armel port is only
> partially usable anyway, as is is built for ARMv4. There exists with
> Raspbian a better suited forked distribution with ARMv6 as target.
>
No - Raspbian contains commercial software now by default. We have to use
Raspberry Pi firmware but Raspberry pi is *not* purely ARM v6 it's ARM v6 with
hardware floating point - and therefore incompatible with Debian and every
other ARM v6 version. Although it is less than optimal, it is still perfectly
supportable by all the packages in armel.
> So yes there is a small number of devices we can still support with the
> armel port, but where we are a bad choice.
>
See above: note that the Raspberry Pi Zero (original version) is still very
much in production and is 32 bit and ARM v6 hardware floating point. It is
still a prime target for armel - and the number of devices produced is not
small.
> Everything newer is ARMv7, supported by the armhf port, or ARMv8,
> supported by the arm64 port.
>
> Latest popcon for stable is:
>
> linux-image-marvell: 31
> linux-image-rpi: 7
>
> Debian itself does not have any armel hardware. Everything is done on
> armhf or arm64. Sadly the armhf supporting systems are already in the
> progress of drying up. Even some ARMv8 vendors do not longer include
> 32bit support.
>
This is, unfortunately, the case. I'm not sure where our sd card images
are built but the Raspberry Pi iamges are built from Gunnar Wolf's scripts
primarily for everything prior to RPi4.
All best, as ever,
Andy
[amacater@debian.org]
> Bastian
>
> --
> Each kiss is as the first.
> -- Miramanee, Kirk's wife, "The Paradise Syndrome",
> stardate 4842.6
>
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