Re: powerpc64, multiarch vs biarch and etch ... (Was: bits from the release team: release goals, python, X.org, amd64, timeline)

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

On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 08:46:48AM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Wed, 31 May 2006, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Maybe, but biarch are what we have now, and what can be made to work. I asked
> > this same question 6+ month ago, and you gave me the same reply, and
> > multi-arch has not progressed an inch since then.
> 
> This is wrong. Sven, please stop saying that nothing changed when you're
> simply annoyed that it's not finished yet.
> 
> In the last 6 months we had:
> - multiarch support added to ld by Aurelien jarno

And Aurelien Jarno telling us he was sick of nothing happening in early april,
and wanting to drop it all. And apparently some of his multi-arch proposals
was refused by the ftp-masters, or so azeem told me yesterday.

> - a report from HP/Canonical about how to go forward

Indeed, i heard rumors of it not having very much content apart from tollef's
work which is nothing really new.

> - another proposition from Goswin van Brederlow (see his recent work and
>   bugreports on -dpkg)

Yes, but what is needed if we want multi-arch in etch we need things to go
forward.  The freeze is in 2 month from now, and there is load of work to be
done to make the packages multi-arch ready, rebuild all the archive or part of
it, find all the bugs in them, etc.

There are patches to dpkg, to the toolchain, etc, but the step from plan to
actual implementation has not be done.

And in that, i said not that there was no discussion or planning since then,
but that in regard to the etch release goal and the actual debian archive, and
i hope that Steve and Andreas didn't take it badly.

Actually, i just want to offer powerpc 64bit folk the possibility of a 64bit
userland for etch, which is something we have been speaking of since before
the sarge release.

Friendly,

Sven Luther