On Mar 12, 2006, at 5:43 AM, Riku Voipio wrote:
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 03:26:00AM -0800, Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:The ARM port desperately needs more of its users to be counted for Debian to continue support for the architecture.Actually we need more developers and faster hardware, not user registered at some random site. if you want to register somewhere, installing popularity-contest[1] debian package is good choice. Better, if you want to help, dig through Arm build failures[2], file bugs adn/or send patches. [1] http://popcon.debian.org/ [2] http://buildd.debian.org/~jeroen/status/architecture.php?a=arm
Note the question mark in the subject line. Since there is no single way to "demonstrate" the number of users to the release team, I was left wondering how close this port was to not being able to meet that qualification requirement when the time comes, and I decided to point out something that can be used to permanently take that requirement off the list of things to worry about during the effort to qualify for Etch release. Using popularity-contest currently requires the use of one's MTA, which can be a significant source of headaches, and I believed that this may cause it not to show sufficient numbers to accomplish that. Faster hardware wouldn't be as much of a problem if wanna-build, etc. could cross-compile, supplementing native compilation. That leaves the need for more developers. Non-primary Debian architectures tend to share developers, so the need is distributed evenly enough that ARM can no more be penalized for a developer shortage than the rest of them. The disproportionately high number of build failures on ARM is like a game of Missile Command, but we still have all our bases. It's a reflection on how much work maintaining Debian is, not on how few people there are to do it.