Bug#341884: libc6: [mips] tri-arch support for mips & mipsel

[Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de>]

On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 06:01:26AM +0100, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
[snip]
> > +Description: GNU C Library: n32 Shared libraries for MIPS
> > + This package includes shared versions of the standard C library and the
> > + standard math library, as well as many others. This is the n32 version
> > + of the library, meant for MIPS systems.
> > +
> > +Package: libc6-dev-mipsn32
> > +Architecture: mips mipsel
> > +Section: libdevel
> > +Priority: standard
> > +Provides: libn32c-dev
> 
> What about providing lib32c-dev instead? It seems more "standard"
> compared to the other ports, and it also have the advantage for other
> biarch packages to use a unique name across all the architectures.
>
> Note also that the other architectures does not encode the ABI name in
> 32-bit or 64-bit packages.

Other architectures have a simple separation between 32 and 64 bit. For
Mips there's often some confusion what n32 qualifies for (embedded
people often call it 64 bit without further qualification). That's why
I recommended to use the ABI names instead. This also avoids the heavily
overloaded "mips32" and "mips64" terms.

[snip]
> > Index: debian/sysdeps/mips.mk
> > ===================================================================
> > --- debian/sysdeps/mips.mk	(.../vendor/glibc/current)	(revision 0)
> > +++ debian/sysdeps/mips.mk	(.../src/glibc)	(revision 144)
> > @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
> > +GLIBC_PASSES += mipsn64 mipsn32
> > +DEB_ARCH_REGULAR_PACKAGES += libc6-mipsn64 libc6-dev-mipsn64 libc6-mipsn32 libc6-dev-mipsn32
> > +# This is needed to keep binutils (ar & ranlib) from getting confused about
> > +# the file format being used.
> > +export GNUTARGET=elf64-tradbigmips
> 
> I have concerned with this. I understand that is is a workaround
> necessary to currently build the glibc, however, I would prefer to have
> a fixed binutils instead of that.
> 
> Note that such a hack is also necessary to build zlib, so I think it is
> virtually necessary for all 64-bit stuff.

N64 uses 64 bit archives, while ar (or rather BFD) assumes 32 bit as
default and falls over its feet when it should switch to 64 bit.


Thiemo