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Re: What about ARM?



Jim Studt <jim@federated.com> writes:

> > Jim Pick wrote:
> > What autobuilding setup are you using?  As of yesterday, I'm trying to
> > set up wanna-build/buildd on rameau.debian.org (the machine Rebel.com
> > set up for us)....
> > It's quite complex, and completely undocumented, so it may take me a
> > while to get it working right....
> 
> I looked at wanna-build a while ago and decided on a daily quinn-diff
> and a couple of 3 line shell scripts.  I have to intervene in such
> a large percentage of the packages that a single netwinder out runs
> my grey-matter anyway.
> 
> wanna-build looks good for keeping up to date once caught up and
> maybe for coordinating a massive well staffed blitz-porting effort.

Hey, hey!  I just got wanna-build/buildd setup on rameau.

I see you've got a large number of packages sitting in incoming from
your autobuilder.

That's great!  Except, now we've got the funny situation of "dueling
autobuilders".  :-)

It looks like you've been able to compile quite a few more packages
successfully.  The wanna-build stuff doesn't seem to take into account
the packages in Incoming - so I'll refrain from uploading anything
just yet.

I bet if I install some of your packages, I'll get quite a few more
clean builds on rameau.  Right now, I'm only getting about a 50%
success rate.
 
> > Once I get rameau setup, I think we can set up additional build
> > daemons.  Did you ever get your maintainer application processed?
> 
> Yes, I am a maintainer.

Cool.  (I think I knew that)

> > The tricky thing with both the NetWinder and the Acorn machines is
> > that a conventional PC-style boot disk isn't going to work (the
> > NetWinder doesn't have a diskette, and the Acorn machines boot RiscOS
> > from ROM).  So boot-floppies will need additional code and/or
> > instructions.
> 
> I've come to grips with the netwinder issues, we (at FSG) install
> software a couple of different ways that will make an easy debian
> install.
> 
> 1) From a running system grab an image and install on a new partition.
>    (Current debian scheme.)
> 2) From a clean (or about to be clean) system download a kernel+image
>    file from a tftp server and do a clean partition and install.
>    (no nfs required).  Maybe set this up on a *.debian.org server?
> 3) From a null serial cable to a machine with a magic daemon, automatically
>    intercept the boot process, download a kernel+image, and install.
>    (Works even if you've committed an atrocity on your flash, well
>    except the first 64k.  Also nice if you are cloning a bunch of them.)

I like all those ideas.

> > I'm not sure what sort of package coverage is necessary.  It's
> > probably up to us, I think.  It's probably a requirement to have every
> > binary package that we do ship up-to-date however.  Obviously,
> > boot-floppies is needed.  I've been neglecting glibc and the
> > toolchain, so that probably needs work again too.
> 
> glibc frightens me, but I built the new gcc and binutils and 
> everything is great, I can even build apt now.  They'll go up with
> my batch tonight.  gdb needs more looking, its always been to large
> a patch for me to send in.  Maybe we can make a gdb-arm until the
> mainline gdb source is close.
> 
> I'm in favor of getting the distribution officially released.  I would
> expect the at least one of the new Intel ARM and HP ARM to come out 
> before the woody release finally ambles out the door.  We'll have 
> better chances of getting a vendor interested in Linux support if we
> 'have' a distribution rather than 'have been trying to finish a 
> distribution'.  I'm hoping there will be some interesting price
> performance machines with the new ARMs.

With you, and a few others helping, perhaps we can get it ready for the
potato release after all.  :-)

Cheers,

 - Jim


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