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Dropping sparc32 for lenny



Hi,

Now that we have released, we need to set our goals for the future. As 
you probably guessed from the subject, I am strongly in favor of 
dropping sparc32 support for lenny. There are multiple reasons for it, 
including

* Nearly complete lack of upstream support. David Miller, current 
  upstream maintainer of sparc64 has expressed his thoughts on the 
  topic in [0], triggering the discussion about dropping sparc32
  support in Aurora Linux. [1]
* Several serious problems, like lack of SMP support and driver 
  failures (CD-ROMs do not work for some reason).
* Shrinking userbase, flaky hardware.
* Possibility to build the archive with optimization for UltraSparc 
  processors, leading in some cases to significant performance 
  improvements.

As much as I hate to see Debian lose the support for another 
subarchitecture, I don't think that anything can be done about it, 
unless a group of determined and, more importantly, capable people,
willing to maintain, fix and test it, will emerge. There is also a 
possibility of separating sparc32 into an unofficial project.

Any thoughts on the matter will be appreciated. My intention is to 
come to a rough consensus (if possible), and then present our plan 
with regards to sparc32 to release managers.

[0] http://marc.info/?l=linux-sparc&m=117407830512186&w=2
[1] http://lists.auroralinux.org/pipermail/aurora-sparc-user/2007-March/004504.html

Best regards,
-- 
Jurij Smakov                                           jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/                      KeyID: C99E03CC

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