Re: slink release (and status discussion)

[Christian Meder <meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de>]

On Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 11:25:09PM +0100, Eric Delaunay wrote:
> 
> Hello dear sparc developers,
> 
>   it appears that slink will be released in one week or so.  Are we ready to
> release our sparc port or do we have to wait for potato ?

Brian said that he schedules release for 2nd of March.
I'd say we are almost ready and we'll be ready by release time. 

> 
> I almost finished the bootdisks including 2.2.1 kernel support for sun4[cdm] &
> sun4u.  I commited my changes to the CVS tree of boot-floppies package
> yesterday evening and I will upload a new set of bootdisks soon (in 1 or 2
> days I hope).

This is great news. Thanks for all your hard work on the boot
floppies, Eric, I guess they'll be really nifty ;-)

> 
> I've just uploaded new sparc-utils package which now provide tilo (required to
> build the bootdisks).

Great.

> 
> I'm in the progress of recompiling libc 5.3.12 to fix the missing source
> package problem (source package is now named libc-sparc).

Even better. That's one piece which was missing.

> 
> What else to be done before the release ?
> 
> - X11: what is the status of X packages ?

According to Anders and Steve they work for them. I'll try them
soonish. I guess Anders is in communication with Branden to get the
architecture (alpha + sparc) patch in the (hopefully) last X upload
before release of slink.

Kernel(s):
> - kernel-image 2.2.1 for both sun4[cdm] & sun4u should be uploaded to slink
>   (along with kernel-source-2.2.1 & kernel-patch...).

Ben Collins packaged Davem's 2.2.x sparc patch and you compiled your
images for the boot floppies. That makes two perfect candidates for
doing the upload ;-)

> - a new kernel-image 2.0.35 should also be uploaded (missing CDROM support,
>   ...).  I compiled the one I use in my bootdisks; could I upload it as is?

Sure you can. Much appreciated.

> - bootable CDROM (I don't have time to burn it, sorry).

Steve perhaps ?

- catching up with the slink packages

My job ;-)
I hope to resolve the question of source patches and the slink source
packages with Brian (see thread 'Re: Uploaded gdb ....' on
debian-devel). I hope to get most of the fixes and recompilations done
by the weekend.

- testing

Everyone who is running the frozen slink distribution on his/her sparc
should report any bug to the list. During the recompilations I found
3-4 simple dependency bugs but there should be more of them hiding
somewhere ;-)   

- sparc webpage on www.debian.org

Jules could you update the sparc specific webpage. The problems with
bash, X and signal stuff are fixed quite a while now.

> 
> Regards.
> 
> PS: should I upgrade the kernel headers included in the libc5 package to
>     2.0.35 (it is 2.0.33 actually) ?

Yes please.


The slink release of Debian/Sparc is drawing near ...

Starring:
Eric Delaunay, the fearless master of the boot floppies
Steve Dunham, general hacker (I really mean hacker) on the bleeding edge
Anders Hammarquist, master of X on sparc _and_ alpha
Christian Meder, can't remember what he actually did ;-)
the forefathers who laid the groundwork for the current Debian sparc
port like Juan Cespedes, ...
the magnificent upstream guys who made all of this possible (in order
of appearance):
Linus Torvalds (you know him I'm sure ;-),
David Miller (him too),
Miguel de Icaza Amozurrutia (of Gnome fame, involved in sparc hacking in the
early days),
Jakub Jelinek (_the_ Ultra (Penguin) guy),
Ulrich Drepper (of glibc2.1 fame),
lots of other people I forgot or don't know

Greetings,



				Christian   
-- 
Christian Meder, email: meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de

What's the railroad to me ?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows, 
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
                      (Henry David Thoreau)