Debian/ppc64el feasiability to become an official architecture
Hi,
I would like to share the ppc64el port's status with you, and check if
it is feasible to consider it as an official port for the next Debian
release, or, what it may be missing for that. We are eager to work on the
missing parts.
I would also strengthen that this architecture is a long term strategic
move, and Debian is a target operating system.
Machines:
--------
Machines for running ppc64el are now commercially available [1].
We moved forwards in the process of donating machines to DSA. One donation (only
online access to the system while the legal is still in bureaucracy)
should happen this week. The discussions have been happening for a while,
and this week DSA should be able to start administering a machine (we will still
be working the bureaucracy in parallel). Also, another donation should happen
around September/August. (both donations are physical (whole machine), not virtual
machines.)
It is important to say that a porterbox, called pastel, has been available
and listed in the Debian Machines page for a while.
Packages coverage:
------------------
Since we were unable to participate in debian-ports buildd due to the lack
of hardware, we created our own buildd. It was able to build (BFS) more than
80% of the architecture-dependent packages in 'unstable/sid'. It is still missing
around 660 packages, but many of them already have patches submitted in BTS, and
more are in the works. The rest of packages (around 1k8) is still depending on the
these 660 packages.
There is the current list of packages built from source (BFS):
http://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/ppc64el/debian/buildd-upstream/build_logs/Uploaded.html
It is important to say that debootstrap (buildd variant) on ppc64el is almost done
(waiting on 2 BTS bugs with patches submitted).
Also, we have Debian installer working internally and all the patches
were already submitted to d-i and the components.
I would like to say that Ubuntu supports ppc64el on the 14.04 LTS release
and has most of these packages working.
[1] - http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/s812l-s822l/
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