Re: Storm Linux 2000
On Wed, Mar 01, 2000 at 09:25:25PM -0800, Kevin Teague wrote:
> > > A PowerPC version of Storm Linux would be the coolest, but I'm afraid we
> > > don't have anything like that in the works right now.
> > >
> >
> > What would be the problem with a powerpc version ? once potato ships, ppc will
> > be supported officially, so it should cost you nothing to ship a ppc version.
> > (sure you need a ppc box to compile the stuff though).
>
> A PowerPC version isn't out of the question, but there are a few
> problems with Stormix shipping a commercial version of it:
>
> 1. Selling a boxed copy of PowerPC becuase there isn't an established
> retail channel to sell to. Do you sell to places that stock other Linux
> distros or do you sell to Mac stores? It will be interesting to see
> where/how well LinuxPPC 2000's boxed version does. Happily, with Linux
> getting more and more popular selling a Mac version in retail stores is
> becoming more feasible.
Just make an iso image available somewhere online, so you see how many person
are interrested. Or maybe you can make a deal with peoples who will soonely
(how well, potato was supposed to be released end of february, so soonely can
mean any time) release ppc motherboards. see http://www.popcomputers.com/ for
details.
> 2. Hardware. We have an iMacDV (mmm, grape) that we use for doing
> graphics and print work. Hardwares not too expensive though.
That should do, with some spare HD perhaps ?
> 3. Manpower. We don't have anyone in the office who is very knowledgable
> about Linux on the PowerPC. If there were any experienced Debian PowerPC
> people interested in working in Vancouver, Canada, then would help a lot
Err, ...
my question was more what do you provide more than what is already in debian ?
Since debian/potato will ship for ppc officialy, you can get a ll the
packages form there and recompile only the packages/stuff you provide on top
of that. If your additional stuff is well programmed, it should cause no
problem, and if not, you will encounter the same problems if you decide to
support any other arch, alpha comes to mind.
So what are the causes of problems you could encounter :
- little endian/big endian problems.
- software that access the hardware directly.
- software that relies on i386 only code from other software.
- others maybe ...
Anyway, i know nothing of what you do, but i guess that the part of the
software you use that will cause you the biggest problem will be the Xfree
configurator, since debian/ppc use the fbdev server, while on i386 the server
access the harddisk directly.
So my question was more curiosity on what parts of the additions to debian
that are part of stormix are so arch dependent. But then maybe i misunderstood
what stormix is.
Friendly,
Sven LUTHER
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