Debian/sparc problems (and solutions?)
Be warned, the following are the insane ramblings of a tired, bored programmer
and should not be taken as any sort of reasonable thought. You have been
warned.
I like Debian Linux. I also like Sun hardware. I'd really like for these
things to start working well together, but there are a whole pile of problems
right now. It would be really nice if we (the people testing Debian/Sparc)
had some central listing of current problems with the distribution, or if
there was someone we could go to who would track these problems & post some
info on the web. I'd do this, but I don't have the time (nor am I a Debian
developer, for that matter). Still, it'd be a nice idea to know who is
working on what and what works and what doesn't. For that matter, if multiple
people are going to be compiling and uploading packages, it would make some
sense to have a sort of reference platform, based on a certain version of
libc and the latest stable kernel, for people to use when compiling. That
would help to eliminate some of the problems now evident, particularly those
related to a package compiled with a different libc than that which is
currently available.
Okay, enough of the rambling, how about some useful info?
A while back someone reported problems with autofs dying after 2-3 minutes.
I've been getting that too; I think this is a libc version problem. I rebuilt
autofs using the latest slink sources and libc6-2.0.95, or whatever is on
master right now. The autofs I compiled works perfectly. I'm beginning to
suspect that some things compiled with earlier versions of libc6 do not work
correctly with the latest version. A recompile seems to help immensely. As
soon as I become a Debian developer I'll start uploading things I compile, but
don't hold your breath. If you really need this fixed download the source and
build it yourself until a developer uploads the binaries.
Many people have noticed that ^Z does not work properly in bash. This bug has
been around for a while, but just now surfaced with ksh. I've tried
rebuilding both bash and ksh but the problem persists. The interesting thing
is that ^Z will work in a bash shell spawned after logging in; it just doesn't
work in the login shell. Perhaps login/telnetd/sshd need to be recompiled.
As a side note, minor conflicts with the latest libc could be causing the
intermittent X (and xdm and chooser) problems that some people have been
experiencing. Maybe someone should try rebuilding X (with the patches Anders
and I put together, of course) to see if that is more stable...
I'm also seeing the problems with modprobe/insmod. I just can't seem to
insert a kernel module, it always complains with the same cryptic error
number. Anyone out there have any ideas on this one?
The menu package will finally compile now, assuming you fix what is (I think)
a bug in libc6-dev. As near as I can tell it works just fine, as do several
other c++ programs that weren't compiling before.
Several things written in C++, including menu and apt, weren't compilable last
I checked. I had some time and I think I know why. In
/usr/include/bits/sigaction.h there is a function pointer declared as a
member of a struct:
void (*sa_restorer) __P ((void));
__P is defined as a macro to recognize function prototypes. Normally this just
returns its arguments, resulting in valid code. However, with glibc2.1 a C++
compiler that supports exceptions (currently only g++ 2.8 and up and egcs) the
__P macro is defined as:
#define __P(args) args throw ()
This is an attempt at making the compiler do some exception optimization for
function prototypes and is normally a good thing (well, presumably). However,
a function pointer isn't a function prototype, so throw() isn't really valid
in that syntax. The __P probably shouldn't be used. If you're having trouble
compiling something with sigaction.h, try changing that line (line 37) to:
void (*sa_restorer) (void);
This has been working fine for me.
Well, that's enough rambling for now. Hopefully some of the above has been
useful to someone. As I seem to be able to compile things now I'd like to
become a Debian developer, so if any real developers on this list would care
to send me a few pointers on getting registered (yes, I've read the web page,
I just haven't gotten my PGP key signed yet so I can't send out the email) or
on uploading binary packages to master that would be most appreciated.
--
Mike "No .sig for you" Shuey
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