Re: Debian cross infrastructure maintenance proposal
+++ Alexander Shishckin [06-04-17 16:58 +0400]:
> >
> > This is a short proposal regarding establishing of a Debian Cross
> > Interest Group -- a team of maintainers tracking all of the packages
> > (or parts of packages) relevant for cross-compilation procedures on
> > Debian systems (and for Debian systems).
Thank you for starting this Wart. I think we have a steadily groewing tesam
of experts here who are capable of doing this work, and Debian is generally
become better-disposed to the work we are doing.
> > List of packages to maintain
> > ------------------------------------
> > 1. binutils
> > Here, we have to maintain a patch by yoush that adds an option to
> > build cross binutils, suitable for use together with cross gcc. It is
> > not clear whether binutils maintainers would like to include it in the
> > package -- at least, we have to maintain the patch against the most
> > recent version (in the buglog of appropriate whishlist item).
> I remember Wookey trying to push the patch against the newest binutils
> in debian. At the moment I have that patch updated to support uclibc-
> architectures. Wookey, did you succeed in convincing James to take
> that patch?
Yes. It is in the recently uploaded 2.16.1cvs20060413-1 so we can stop
carrying that, and next try to push the -uclibc architectures in (althogh
people need to agree which set of patches to push and the names (uclibc-i386
or i386-uclibc for example - patches for both exist). This is part of the
general 'arch-naming' debate we have been having. I'm not sure if a clib
naming convention has been agreed?
> > 2. gcc
> > Here, we have to maintain patches against gcc source package,
> > which add the ability to produce cross-compilers out of Debian gcc.
There should be no difficulty getting these into the standard versions. Are
all relevant patches posted as wishlist bugs yet? We have also had
permission to put in patches so that a limited set of cross-toools is
actually built by the autobuilders. I beleive Simon Richter is following that up?
> > Optional: dpkg
> > We might step into trouble involved in pushing our ideas regarding
> > additional architectures to dpkg :)
Maybe, but we should get those in as wishlist bugs soon (along with binutils
and gcc) so that they can be discussed more widely.
> > Plus, of course, all relevant READMEs and documentation.
> Volunteers are very welcome.
I suspect we have much of what is needed already in emdebian pages, slind,
debian wiki, volker's pages etc. But it doesn need someone competent to
understand it all to bring it together. I will try and do some of this but
would really welcome help. If people can get the technical info vaguely
together then I can very easily improve the english.
> > How are we going to do that?
> > -------------------------------------
> > debian-embedded@l.d.o (or should we ask for a new list, specifically for that?)
> No more lists, I implore. This list is rather silent anyway and I
> don't see why we should move cross-compilation topic out of here.
Yep - keep it on this list for now. We can split when people start to
complain about being overwhelmed.
> > Preliminary TODO
> > -------
> > 1. Check relevance of the current patches against binutils and gcc, update
> > if needed, announcing changes to the structure to debian-gcc.
> Everything's fine with them, if we're talking about latest versions of
> gcc and binutils. In a couple of days I'll post them here (if anyone's
> interested to review those), cleaned up and shiny.
Alexander - you have had your couple of days :-)
> > 4. Check and test additional patches to the abovementioned packages
> > coming from Slind, propose for inclusion, if found interesting.
> I would insist on slind patches from the beginning, of course. After
> all, I'm not very interested in maintaining several versions of a same
> patch. Slind changes are either useful (to those who use 'em) or
> simply don't hurt.
Indeed. So lets get any outstanding cross-build patches filed. It is
important to separate out the -uclibc patches and file those separately.
Wookey
--
Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679
work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
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