2.6.12 debian powerpc kernels and ppc64 ...

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

Hello,

I would like testers who want to test new powerpc kernels on ppc64 machines :

These i have uploaded here :

  http://people.debian.org/~luther/ppc64/kernel-image-2.6.12-sven_1_powerpc.deb
  http://people.debian.org/~luther/ppc64/kernel-image-2.6.12-sven64_1_powerpc.deb

They are built out of the 2.6.12 debian kernel subversion package, but built
with the ubuntu glibc and gcc-4.0 packages which do support biarch, something
we don't (yet) have in debian.

sven is the powerpc flavour, and sven64 is the new pseries flavour which is
smp, and which will replace all the power3, power3-smp, power4 and power4-smp
flavours. (and yes, we are killing the non-smp versions of those kernels).

Later will follow a pseries-power4 flavour which optimizes for power4 (no idea
if this brings something or not though), as well as a legacy-iseries flavour,
for pre-power5 iseries machines, if anyone has access to one of those, please
contact me and see if we can arrange some testing of stuff and such.

This means that for 2.6.12 there will be no power3/4 kernels in the archive,
because the toolchain guys (mostly doko and gotom) didn't yet have time to
upload the biarch toolchain, and couldn't make any prediction of timeframe for
it too happen, despite sarge being out over a month now, and ubuntu having it
for a couple of months. So if you need ppc64 packages urgently, you know who
to blame for it :)

I will provide unofficial packages at :

  http://people.debian.org/~luther/ppc64/

Hopefully in sync with the debian uploads, altough i may be offline the next
two weeks. The debian packages will include instructions on how to build those
yourself also.

On another side, Manoj seems to consider powerpc support as not important, and
downgraded bug #318431 to whishlist, and clearly shows no interest in fixing
this, which means pain for the powerpc upload, as well as problematic for the
ppc64 packages, so kernel-package is another package you have to patch in
order to make the ppc64 build happen, thanks Manoj for the pain :)

And to finish, this was all built for you on a Genesi Pegasos machine, at
debconf 5 in helsinki, without any test on real ppc64 hardware, or help from
IBM, who apparently messed up (well, together with our previous DPL i fear)
what they believed was a debian donation of machines which ended up in
Augsbourg without anyone in the debian project even being aware of it.

Anyway, please test and enjoy, and provide feedback.

Friendly,

Sven Luther