Hi,
One of the problems sparc32 is facing for etch is the build-dependency
of silo on gcc-2.95. Currently gcc-2.95 has an RC bug, which causes its
build failure; furthermore silo is the only package which still
build-depends on gcc-2.95. So, there are plenty or reasons to try
building silo with newer compilers.
It turned out that silo builds fine with gcc-4.1, it also works fine on
sparc64. The problem is that it hangs/breaks on sparc32. Eventually, the
problem was tracked down (thanks to Steve Langasek and Lars Wirzenius
for advice), and an experimental new silo package is now available. I
would appreciate if you could test this new package, to make sure that
there are no regressions. As usual, when fiddling with silo, there is a
rather big probability that you'll end up with an unbootable machine, so
be prepared for it :-).
The binary package and a patch is available at
http://www.wooyd.org/debian/silo