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

Re: dpkg-cross, dpkg-architecture and arch names



Hi,

[ Taking this back, even if a bit late. ]

On Wed, 2007-03-07 at 11:23:25 +0100, Volker Grabsch wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 08:48:14AM +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
> > Well it's just 2 chars shorter. We have arch names like hurd-i386 or
> > even kfreebsd-i386. ;)
> 
> If there was a consensus for "win32-i386", I'd also be happy with it.
> Any choice would be an improvement to the current situation.

Sure.

> > Why do you need i586? I think someone else asked the same.
> 
> Yes, and I answered it already: The standard MinGW cross compiler
> for Debian (packages "mingw32") has the prefix "i586-mingw32msvc".
> 
> So this is simply a practical need. Sadly the maintainer of
> mingw32, Ron, didn't join the discussion.
> 
> Do you think it's sensible to create an own cross compiler package
> just for having a "i486-mingw32msvc"?

Yeah, I don't see why we should disallow people to run on such
hardware if it's technically feasible, and not that much work once
that toolchain is in place.

> > > > The latter (missing win32), is a matter of adding that to the ostable,
> > > > I can do that, if there's consensus among the win32 porters.
> > > 
> > > Yes! Please append to /usr/share/dpkg/ostable this line:
> > > 
> > > w32             mingw32msvc     mingw32[^-]*
> > 
> > I'd need some kind of consensus from the win32 porters first,
> 
> Who do you mean with "win32 porters"? Why didn't you just CC the
> discussion question to them?

You brought it here, so I assumed you were representing them, or
similar. We can move this discussion to whatever place is more
appropriate. As I've not followed the win32 port development, I
don't really know where such place would be.

> Do I have to organize a voting for the Debian ostable entry
> (w32 vs. win32 vs. ...) among win32 porters?
> 
> How many win32 porters will I have to find and ask? What if
> those don't exist? What if they don't use Debian (and won't,
> unless dpkg-cross supports them)?

Well, when creating a new port one of the first things you do is to
choose a name for it, that's at least what we did with the kbsd ones.
So I had assumed that had been done already. The same applies for the
gnu triplet, it's something you want to get right from the beginning
to not have to rebuild/patch eveything from scratch after some time.

> > I'm not
> > going to add this with just one person asking for it, and then having
> > the rest come screaming, sorry. ;)
> 
> Why should they scream?
> Did "they" never ask for a permanent entry in the ostable?

Just check what happened with the amd64 vs x86_64 port name some time
ago...

> > > There are problems with the cputable, but this change to the
> > > ostable is (to my knowledge) a general consensus.
> > 
> > Do you have pointers to discussions about that?
> 
> Do, sorry, these were personal mail exchanges. It was hard enough
> for me to find *anyone* who's interested on that topic.
> 
> I think, most gave up because they didn't do the research I did,
> probably they don't even know about the mingw32 oder dpkg-cross
> packages.
> 
> So they build their cross compilers, configure-make their libs,
> and build their packages. The same effort for every win32 porter.
> Some gave up, some got it somehow to work. I didn't want to stay
> on that level. I tried to figure out the "right thing".

Having been involved with a new port, I'd recommend you to consider
publishing everything you've done as early as possible and document
the stuff, so others can join or pick up the work afterwards if you
decide to leave or need help or similar.

> To my knowledge, I'm alone with that goal, until I produce some
> initial work that's big enough so that others are interested to
> join and help. In order to do this, I need a non-kludge way to
> create cross compiled packages for Debian. You require me to get
> a community first which then discusses about the name. To get
> a community, I need some initial work. Do do that, I need a
> name, etc.

If this a one man effort, I'm fine discussing with you what arch
name would make more sense relative to the existing ones, and
getting consensus and a rational for that decission.

> I thought your offer to include an ostable entry was serious, but
> for me it's effectively a "no", because for me it's connected to
> some unresolvable dependencies.

Sorry if this came through this way, that was not my intention.

> However, if there's a community I don't know about, please tell
> me. I couldn't find any, except debian-embedded which was the
> closest one despite the dead debian-win32 list and the GnuWin32
> project which isn't connected to Debian.
> (except via my any2deb tool and http://www.profv.de/debian/)

As I've said I don't know the current status of that port.

regards,
guillem



Reply to: