Re: [buildd] Etch?
Hi,
On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > Last time I checked the cas instruction is also not available, which
> > makes multithreaded code interesting.
>
> This is an issue I didn't know about yet. It's indeed missing, but I
> didn't know that these instructions were that important.
>
> Can you give me an example of how it's actually used in multithreading?
I know it's used in libstdc++, possibly other places too. It's the only
way to implement signal safe primitives without kernel traps.
In this case I'm considering adding a special page to the user process
(similiar to the x86 vsyscall stuff). This would make it possible to
support WildFire (locked and dma accesses don't like each other) and
similiar broken hardware.
> > A hybrid doesn't automatically fix the toolchain problems and doesn't
> > really make the toolchain maintainance any easier, if it worked for CF it
> > would also work for m68k.
>
> Of course not; I don't think I ever implied that.
>
> However, it would solve several other outstanding problems which we have
> and that have to do with the age of the hardware. This is certainly
> important.
What problems would that be? Toolchain problems don't solve itself and
the build speed doesn't seem to the biggest problem.
> > How many users would this really add? AFAICT this is pretty much all
> > embedded.
>
> I think you're underestimating the importance of embedded use of Debian.
> The arm port is pretty much all embedded, too, but it still has many
> users.
>
> I've seen actual embedded developers use Debian systems to base their
> embedded file systems on. In fact, I've once been hired to help create a
> CD-ROM that would be sold to embedded developers to make the
> installation of a cross-toolchain and some base libraries easier. This
> was all based on Debian.
>
> I'm being told that this type of things happens rather often; so yeah,
> making the port useful for embedded developers would certainly add a lot
> of users.
The problem is that these users are not really visible, could Debian/CF
meet the release requirements on its own?
I'd really prefer to keep this at least initially separate and worry about
a possible merge later.
> Besides, there are actually amiga upgrades being sold based on ColdFire
> processors. See http://elbox.com/faq_dragon.html and
> http://elbox.com/news_04_12_17.html. That being said, I don't know how
> popular those are, or indeed even if they actually sold any of those
> already.
Hmm, the oldest news is about one year old and I couldn't find anything in
the online shop. Even for their PCI boards we currently have no kernel
support.
bye, Roman
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