Status of Debian on mipseb [was RE: Linux for SGI]

[Mike Hill <mikehill@hgeng.com>]

Greetings,

Here is a summary of Debian's status on SGI machines:

dpkg:
Builds without much trouble, according to those that have succeeded.

packages:
Ulf Carlsson's latest attempt to build some base packages resulted in
tragedy due to an unresolved symbol in glibc.  Hopefully this condition will
go away with the newer glibc/binutils when they are ready.

kernel:
Kernel development is ongoing and the best place to keep up with it is the
SGI/Linux mailing list.  You can subscribe at http://www.linux.sgi.com/mips/

installation:
In order to get Linux running on your Indy, the only current option is Red
Hat 5.1 (aka "Hard Hat") available from the SGI/Linux website or last year's
Rough Cuts CD set.  Once you have Hard Hat installed, it's possible to
natively compile things like dpkg, the latest kernel (from the SGI/Linux CVS
server) and XEmacs 21.1.  Ralf Baechle has built Red Hat 6.0 packages that
may be available somewhere.  Check the mailing list archives for tricks in
Indigo2 installation (done using a serial console).

documentation:
Again, http://www.linux.sgi.com/mips/

I have an Indigo2 at work that nearly runs Hard Hat (the serial console
works and the distribution is installed on the hard drive; booting from the
local drive needs work); my Indy at home is running the 2.2.10 kernel from
CVS.

Ulf Carlsson has, at times, been working on the X server and IndyCam
support.

As Florian pointed out, binutils is broken and preventing the upgrade to
glibc 2.1.  Once this is fixed it should be possible to build working debs
for mipseb (big-endian mips).

Regards,

Mike
--
mdhill@interlog.com
mikehill@hgeng.com