Re: Plan needed for switching m68k to 32-bit alignment
On Tue, 2024-10-29 at 14:39 +1100, Finn Thain wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, Michael Schmitz wrote:
>
> > On 25/10/24 22:55, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> >
> > > I also expect that a lot of users (of m68k kernels) are never going to
> > > get the benefits as they are already stuck on older userspace because
> > > of added bloat in new software releases. I assume you have better
> > > understanding than me of what m68k hardware is commonly used these
> > > days, and how constrained that is in practice.
> >
> > I second that - currently bisecting to find out what makes my extremely
> > RAM constrained m68k system fail to boot or run anything past 6.9-rc4
> > (sysvinit, not systemd).
> >
>
> As cloud instances multiply, that small quantity of lost RAM gets
> multiplied. So it appears that small systems aren't so strange, even after
> they become unprofitable...
Yes, who doesn't know the cloud instances with 64 MB RAM. Those are today's standard.
> > Much as I appreciate Adrian's efforts to keep up with user space
> > development, I won't be in a position to help with an ABI change.
> >
>
> Bloated m68k packages will continue to work -- given emulators that run
> faster with every hardware upgrade. But how would such a distro add value?
You can easily upgrade Amigas to 256 MB or more these days. The aftermarket
provides a lot of affordable upgrades these days.
> I don't mind if Gentoo ships a separate profile for (downstream) ABI
> experimentation, leaving the default m68k profile on the standard ABI.
The Gentoo developers will be glad to hear that you don't mind. Do you think
they need a written permission from you?
> And if Debian wants to switch ABI entirely, I won't object further, I've
> said enough about the associated risks.
>
> So I'll just reiterate that I'd rather see more collaboration instead -
>
> 1) among all small systems ports, to try to alleviate Debian's package
> dependency problem
That dependency chain comes from upstream, not from Debian.
> 2) among all developers working on non-commercial architectures, to
> improve the GCC Rust frontend
GCC Rust uses parts of the upstream Rust code, so you can expect the same
problems there as well.
> 3) among all 680x0 developers interested in the NetBSD ABI
The alignment issue affects NetBSD as well.
> 4) among all users of EOL'd hardware, so that value may continue to be
> extracted from it (thanks to the efforts of Debian and Gentoo devs,
> among others).
Software will run faster with 32-bit alignment, not slower.
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer
`. `' Physicist
`- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
Reply to: