[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Retiring the sparc32 port



Greetings,

For the last couple of years the sparc32 port did not have an active 
upstream maintainer, so the task of kernel maintenance has been 
shifted on to the developers and contributors, working on Debian's 
sparc port. Lack of upstream support made it something of a challenge 
to bring it to release quality for etch. Even though we deemed it 
suitable for release, there were quite a few problems, which a 
well-maintained port should not have. As there was little to none 
continued interest in supporting sparc32 in Debian, a discussion was 
started on the debian-sparc mailing list about the future of sparc32 
for lenny. In particular, it was suggested that support for it should 
be dropped in the next Debian's release [0].

While there were a few objections, nobody stepped up to the plate and 
volunteered to become a new sparc32 maintainer. Thus, the only option 
we have at this point is to officially declare that lenny will not 
include support for sparc32 hardware (this decision has been 
coordinated with the release, installer and kernel teams). Newer 
sparc64 hardware will be supported as before, and we hope that we will 
be able to improve the performance by optimizing compilation of 
packages for Ultrasparc CPUs.

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2007/04/msg00044.html

Best regards,
-- 
Jurij Smakov                                           jurij@wooyd.org
Key: http://www.wooyd.org/pgpkey/                      KeyID: C99E03CC

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: