Re: Architecture baseline for Forky
Okay, lists does not want my emails anymore…
On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 02:17:58PM +0100, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> On Sun, 2025-10-26 at 13:21 +0100, Bastian Blank wrote:
> > All other architectures use the default values.
> What about riscv64, is that going to make the same switch as Ubuntu (RV23)?
I did not formulate a plan for riscv64. RV23 also does not seem to be
finished yet (the required V extension seems to be not final yet). Nor
does Debian got hardware that would work with it.
> And any plans for loong64 yet? The port is very mature these days and we have
> two beefy loong64 machines under the supervision of DSA. It's a very good
> candidate for forky in my opinion.
This is a new architecture, so unrelated to this.
> > I propose to use the POWER9 baseline in Forky. The Debian infrastructure seems
> > to be comprised of all POWER9s. This means POWER8 will stop being supported in
> > 2028.
> I think dropping POWER8 is a bit early given that POWER9 is just three years younger.
POWER9 is actually a large update of the instruction set. It includes a
redesigned vector unit, while POWER8 needs some achrobatics to use
vector stuff in little endian mode. Also it brings 128bit floating
point.
> > I propose to use the z15 baseline in Forky.
> Do we have any sort of feedback what machines users run Debian's s390x port on?
No we don't.
> I would argue that both POWER and z-Series are hardware with very long support
> cycles by the manufacturer
Actually they are not. z13 is end of service since end of last year.
If they follow the same pattern, all z14 variants will be end of service
at the end of 2026. And users of that hardware are way less likely to
use it without service and you won't find them in the homes of
enthusiasts.
POWER8 is also end of service since last year. More likely to show up,
yes.
Bastian
--
You can't evaluate a man by logic alone.
-- McCoy, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
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