Re: lenny+1 and the future of the alpha port?
On Thursday 21 August 2008 21:36:22 Steve Langasek wrote:
> If not, I think it's time to look at retiring the alpha port gracefully as
> a release architecture. Alpha has had a long, proud run in Debian, but if
> alpha/lenny+1 isn't actually going to be useful to anyone, and no one is
> really maintaining it (we've been mostly coasting for lenny already on the
> porting front), it would be better to drop the port now rather than
> continue to take up project resources and become a source of resentment.
>
> Thoughts?
>
I imagine that many of the uses people have listed lately (especially the
firewalls) would only require source code and a compiler. So we wouldn't
REALLY lose Alpha until the kernel no longer builds on it. That is sadly the
condition of my old IBM 6015 PowerPC boxen, which are stuck on 2.4.18. :(
Having a complete Lenny would at least let us bootstrap updates we roll
ourselves.
I'm not a coder, but I think I can work out how to make debs of tolerable
quality if someone is absolutely stuck with a firewall w/o compiler or the
ability to cross compile and needs help.
But that's a while off. Steve, when you say dropping the arch for Lenny+1,
what does that imply for Alpha when Lenny is oldstable?
Cheers,
James
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