Re: Proposal for new architecture support/distribution
On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 04:37:50PM -0500, Phillip R. Jaenke wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
>
> > Unless I'm severely mistaken, the userland for all lines of Power* CPUs
> > should be identical, minus a few hardware-related programs. The major
> > portion of the work is kernel; if you can get them to boot, we'll
> > gladly support the installation process.
>
> Unfortunately, this does not hold true for all userland programs. ie;
> mpg123. Allow me to show you a little snippet from it's source tree.
>
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5030 4717 Nov 8 1997 decode.c
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5030 5070 Nov 8 1997 decode_2to1.c
> - -rw-r--r-- 1 5285 5010 6528 Dec 2 11:54 decode_3dnow.s
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5030 5445 Nov 8 1997 decode_4to1.c
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5010 5778 Dec 2 11:54 decode_i386.c
> - -rw-r--r-- 1 5285 5010 6984 Nov 19 05:42 decode_i486.c
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5030 5150 Aug 23 1997 decode_i586.s
> - -rw------- 1 5285 5030 6120 Nov 2 17:42 decode_ntom.c
But assembler for one powerpc should work on another. If it doesn't,
then it should be fixed. We have a working mpg123.
> As I stated in my original email, the information should not be too
> difficult, seeing as how IBM has now joined Linux International. I don't
> believe they'll be too argumentative or difficult with giving us the
> information required for the PowerPC RS64 II and the Power2 processor.
Processor is not the issue. That should be public information. They
ARE the same architecture.
On Mon, Feb 01, 1999 at 05:32:43PM -0500, Phillip R. Jaenke wrote:
> Kernel and hardware incompatibilities can lead to binary
> incompatibilities. Plus, IIRC, the current PowerPC distributions are all
> compiled for UP. As I said, most RS/6000's are SMP. And a multi-threaded
> application will still work on a UP system, of course. Another reason is
> due to the almost totally commercial use of the RS/6000. Unlike your
> standard Linux distribution, to actually make headway in the RS/6000
> arena, it would require a focus more on applications that are used in the
> server market; ie, Apache, SSL webservers, NFS, Samba, and commercial
> applications such as Oracle, etc, providing an 'official' distribution for
> the RS/6000 convinces them to port to said distribution.
I'm confused. Different kernels should _never_ harm userland
compatibility. Only the kernel should ever need to know the difference
between UP and SMP.
Plus, why do you claim that the server market is not the Linux focus?
We go much deeper into the server market than the workstation one.
Dan
/--------------------------------\ /--------------------------------\
| Daniel Jacobowitz |__| CMU, CS class of 2002 |
| Debian GNU/Linux Developer __ Part-Time Systems Programmer |
| dan@debian.org | | drow@cs.cmu.edu |
\--------------------------------/ \--------------------------------/
Reply to: