Re: DSA concerns for jessie architectures (mips*)
On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Peter Palfrader <weasel@debian.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Jun 2013, Andreas Barth wrote:
>
>> > * mips: existing machines are either not reliable or too slow to keep
>> > up; we suspect that they may not be easily replaceable.
>
>> Also, if we buy more mipsel machines we could convert the mipsel
>> swarms to mips ones (and so replace broken machines, see below) -
>> mostly depends on how urgent you think this is.
>
> If our existing eight-year old hardware is the only mips machines we can
> reasonably get then that doesn't bode well for mips. We don't think
> relying on the SWARMs (alone) is an option.
>
>> > * mipsel: the porter machine and some of the buildd machines have an
>> > implementation error for one opcode; missing kernel in the archive
>>
>> Different answers - select the one you like most:
>> 1. We could buy a some loongson 2f machines (or newer), see e.g.
>> http://www.tekmote.nl/epages/61504599.sf/nl_NL/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61504599/Products/CFL-006
>> plus some memory. These machines have kernels in the archive, and not
>> the hardware bug with choking on too many nop-instructions in a row.
>
> AIUI these machines have a maximum memory of only 1GB. That's probably
> OK for now but might be problematic in the long term.
>
>
>> 3. We have currently two new machines with loongson 3a processors to
>> test. It will take a bit of time to finally get a working kernel on
>> these, but that would also decrease build-times quite much.
>
> When do you expect them to be usable?
>
> If not any time soon then maybe we should try to get a couple of
> loongson 2f machines. Would four machines of this type be sufficient to
> replace all our exist swarm and 2e machines as buildds? If so, should
> we just get 5 (4buildd+1porterbox)?
>
We have two 3A notebooks that Lemote donated directly to the student
and mentor of the MIPS N32/N64 port GSoC project, the only blocking
issue to use them as official buildd is supporting patches aren't
accepted by upstream, otherwise they are working fine. A self-built
version of Linux 3.6 with Lemote patches is used right now.
It was a 4-core SMP system with 2GB RAM installed (upgrade seems hard
for the notebook, though the CPU itself supports more), and was tested
to be quite stable when doing test build of some mips64el packages.
The stability of hardware is somewhat temperature-sensitive, which
means when they are running with full parallel building load, they are
only tested to be stable in a server room cooling to 17°C, but hang
once every 1 or 2 days when put in a room of 25°C. There is no remote
management facility available to the notebook, dunno for development
boards or servers.
We could ask Lemote for donation if we want those machines to provide
build power of Debian, and I volunteer to help if needed.
Regards,
Aron
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