Frans Pop wrote:
On Sunday 15 July 2007 03:53, Austin Denyer wrote:On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:08:57 -0700, Steven Ringwald <asric@asric.com>I, for one, will be sorry to see it go, as I actively use my SS10's and 20's. Anyone know of any other Linux distros out there that support the Sparc32 architecture, or am I going to have to look into something like NetBSD going forward?I too will be sad to see it go. I love my SS5...Hi Steven and Denyer,
Hello,
We are *also* sad to see sparc32 go, but these kinds of messages are only a repeat of similar reactions on earlier threads.
Of course.
What we need to sparc32 alive - not only in Debian, but in Linux in general - is not people who are sad, but people who are willing to invest time and energy to fix the issues there are, to make sure sparc32 is supported in the software (kernel, toolchain, whatever) and who are committed to _keeping_ it maintained.
I agree.
Being sad unfortunately does not help with that at all.As to alternatives, what you should be looking for is somewhere where there is a vibrant sparc32 community, including people who are not just sad, but who are actually doing work to maintain the port.
The real question is : today, how can give some time to keep sparc32 alive. I take some time to debug the last blocking bug in smp kernel, but I think I am alone to work on the sparc32 kernel. For me, sparc32 should not die because there is a Leon processor that is a sparc V8 clone.
Main problem is kernel developpement. If we can continue developpement of sparc32 kernel, sparc32 port will be alive.
I have no idea if NetBSD has such a community or not.
I have tried NetBSD. NetBSD 3.1 (or 4.0) is not stable on SS20 (dual SM71, dual RT626, quad RT626). I don't know why (same trouble than Solaris 9 on quad CPU configuration. Linux is the only mature OS (and today the only usable _and_ up to date) on sparc32 (regular Sun hardware, or new Leon oriented hardware).
Regards, JKB