The sparc32 port has been struggling for some time. Last month Jurij Smakov, currently the most active Debian Sparc porter, raised the question if support sparc32 should be dropped for Lenny [1]. The main reason is the fact that sparc32 support is no longer being maintained upstream for the kernel [2]. A result of that is that the 2.6.21 kernel is currently broken, which forces the issue. Another reason is that dropping sparc32 support will allow optimization for sparc64 which will result in improved support for the modern sparc systems from Sun and Hitachi. Other distributions have already made this choice. Unless a group of people is willing to commit to providing the needed upstream kernel and toolchain support for sparc32, the Debian project will be forced to drop sparc32 for Lenny. Doing this early in the release cycle has the advantage of allowing sufficient time to work on optimizing support for sparc64. Given the current problems with sparc32 in the 2.6.21 kernel, the final decision on this will be made before the end of this month. Frans Pop [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2007/04/msg00044.html [2] http://marc.info/?l=linux-sparc&m=117407830512186&w=2
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