Compiling Debian packages for DJGPP ?
Hello DJGPP workers, hello Debian Developers.
I'm neither a DJGPP nor a Debian developer. Just a Free Software addict
that enjoy reading Debian MLs and hope he'll help someday. This is
crossposted to debian-devel and djgpp-workers. Sorry if i'm annoying
anyone there.
I'm planning to try compiling some Debian packages for FreeDOS, using
DJGPP. I too shy to use the word "debian port", but that's the idea ;).
I've crossposted this to the djgpp-workers and debian-devel mailing
lists, to know what you all nice poeple think about this, and to know
what level of assistance (compassion?) I can expect from you.
Short summary for the few around that understand only the half of what
i say ;) DJGPP is a DOS port of gcc, featuring a libc granting a
reasonable API compatibility to programs from the *nix world (especially
GNU software) (correct me if i am wrong). Debian is known as a GNU/Linux
distribution, but is not tied to this particular kernel, since it has
been also ported to the Hurd, and other projects exist (*BSD, win32,
darwin, ...).
The debian-djgpp idea sounds odd, granted. I'm a bit crazy sometimes.
However i really think there could be interests :
1. The result. This is not the most important, but it could be funny. It
could even be useful. Think of the great quantity of software that would
be made easily runnable on FreeDOS. For old hardware or embedded things,
this could be useful.
2. This would give you, DJGPP folks, a feedback on how able DJGPP is to
compile a ton of software originally written for *nix. Working together
we could extend the compatibility even more.
3. This would give you, debian developers, and your upstreams an idea of
how well their software compiles and run on one more architecture.
IMHO extending Debian to more and more different free kernels is very
important. It creates more links and relationship between different
groups of the Free Software users/developers. The idea of removing even
more bindings between the available software and the OS used is quite
pleasant. Even porting Debian to proprietary OSes cans have an
interest : it may make poeple discover the FS. (i'm thinking of the
debian-w32 project.)
Thanks for having read so far. I'd greatly appreciate positive or
negative comments about all this stuff from you all.
--
Jeremie Koenig <sprite@sprite.fr.eu.org>
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