Re: Debian for Linux/68k?

[Bruce Perens <bruce@Pixar.com>]

jdassen@WI.LeidenUniv.NL said:
> Raul wrote: [valid points deleted] In other words, it's not a simple 
> port.  There are at least a few substantial issues to be resolved.

My apologies for the over-simplistic answer. I was assuming the questioner
was cognizant of the 68k booting/loading issues.

> Yes. Furthermore, different architectures may need different  
> patches

Offhand, the architecture-specific areas I can think of are:
	1. Lots of kernel issues - startup, vm, interrupts, device handling.
	2. LILO and its ilk don't apply to other architectures.
	3. Does GAS support your instruction set?
	4. bin86 doesn't apply.
	5. Has gcc/g++ been retargeted to your architecture?

You can probably bring up more. We might eventually consider adding
arch/{386,68k,alpha,arm,ppc} directories to our source tree, so that things
like bin86 can be segrated from the architecture-independent software.

I would hope that the ELF format, the mmap interface, and the kernel API would
insulate most user-mode programs from any architecture-dependence. If programs
are using assembler, either through asm statements or .s files, I'd hope they
would also provide a C equivalent.

	Thanks

	Bruce



--
-- Attention Radio Amateurs: For information on "Linux for Hams",
-- read the WWW page http://www.hams.com/LinuxForHams, 
-- or e-mail the word "help" to info@hams.com