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Re: X Working!



In article <Pine.LNX.4.10.10002171700050.18123-100000@dystopia.lab43.org> you wrote:

> The nicer
> part is if all the "Debian" fixes get propogated back to the orignal
> package maintainers, then everyone is a winner.  (I don't know if they do
> this now, if so sorry for the false assumption.)

Most of us work *really* hard to make sure that any fixes or additions to 
upstream source get propagated back upstream.  I have excellant working
relationships with most of the upstream maintainers of the 2 dozen or so
source packages I manage for Debian.  However, there is often a non-trivial 
time delay before changes we make show up in new upstream releases.  For 
example, I maintain the gzip package, which went over 6 years between public
releases, and hasn't had a *significant* public release since 18 Aug 1993!  
We've made a number of changes since then, including fixes for unsafe /tmp 
usage, etc... all of which have been contributed upstream, but which are 
mostly invisible until there's a new release.  No distribution can ever be 
100% in sync with upstream authors... but I think we try really hard.

> My understanding of the Debian ARM port is it should run any binaries from
> at least a current armv4l system.  Same as the Rebel DM 4.0 will be, and
> what the current Titan VI is (both of which are/will have a versioned
> glibc).

As long as our compilers, libraries, and kernels stay more or less in sync,
this is a completely reasonable assumption.  I know, for example, that several
maintainers of amateur radio software build on Debian and use 'alien' to
reconstitute their packages as .rpm's for Redhat users apparently quite
successfully.

> mainly here as I am interested in getting a current version of XFree86
> 3.3.6 running on ARM.  Ideally with optimization as well...

Absolutely!  I still have some scars from trying to work on this right around 
the time Corel -> Rebel was happening, which was also a time of great turmoil
in the Debian X source tree.  Just too frustrating then, hopefully we can get
it done this time!

Bdale


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