Package: wnpp Severity: normal I intend to orphan the hercules package. It's an s390(x) emulator and the package itself is in fairly good shape overall. It's mostly that I have no use for it for several years now. (And mostly I do not want to feel responsible for it anymore.) Upstream has been trying for years to get a 4.0 release together[0], but the last commit for that was back in 2019. The website also moved around a bunch of times. So it's unclear at this point how maintained it is, if at all. qemu also offers a usable s390x emulator. I'd say that hercules is a lot more true to the original hardware, especially if you need to emulate the platform for something else than Linux. Or if you want to emulate an ancient System/360 or System/370. The package's description is: > Hercules is an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 > and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new 64-bit z/Architecture. > . > This means that your PC can emulate an IBM mainframe processor. The > mainframe can range from a 360 to a z900 - running in "System/370" > mode, "ESA/390" mode, or "z/Architecture" mode. Hercules executes > S/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture instructions and channel > programs. It emulates mainframe I/O devices by using PC devices. For > example, 3390 DASD devices are emulated by large files on your hard > disk, and local 3270 screens are emulated by tn3270 sessions. > . > Hercules implements only the raw S/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture > instruction set; it does not provide any operating system facilities. This > means that you need to provide an operating system or standalone program which > Hercules can load from an emulated disk or tape device. You will have to use a > free software operating system such as Linux, write the operating system or > standalone program yourself, obtain a license from IBM to run one of their > operating systems on your PC, or use IBM programs and operating systems which > have been placed in the public domain. > . > Virtual networking can be accomplished using the TUN/TAP driver in > host Linux kernel. [0] https://github.com/hercules-390/hyperion
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