[Debian-ppc64-devel] Re: ppc64 archive bloating alioth disk ...

[Sven Luther]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 11:46:19PM +0200, Andreas Jochens wrote:
> On 05-Sep-20 21:09, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 07:51:30PM +0200, Andreas Jochens wrote:
> > We already have a biarch glibc, so that you can actually build the libraries
> > and stuff yourself.
> 
> Unfortunately it is not that easy because every library package I want 
> to build has to be patched for the biarch build. Moreover the 
> necessary patches are different for each packages and also sometimes
> very complicated. I simply have not the time and resources to do this 
> myself.

Patched ? Well, upto a point maybe, but most of the logic requires to rename
the package in the control file and to add -m64 to the CC call.

> > > I think it will be a _major_ task to create any kind of "biarch setup" 
> > > for a reasonable set of libraries for Debian. Many people have already 
> > > tried that and nobody had any success with this so far. 
> > 
> > Ah, yes ? Who tried it ? 
> 
> The sparc/sparc64, s390/s390x, hppa/hppa64 ports and most intensly 
> the early amd64 biarch porting efforts. Neither of these ports has 
> actually reached more than libc, despite the fact that those efforts 
> have been started years ago. It is _difficult_.

Yep, well. possibly, but i still think this will be needed for etch. Maybe the
multi-arch effort will show more promise and maturity, but i am not betting on
it.

> > Oh,  libz and libncurses too ? I thought only the base toolchain was biarch,
> > see it has already started.
> 
> libz had a biarch infrastructure for i386/amd64 and I filed a patch
> to the BTS which extended this to powerpc/ppc64. That patch was 
> accepted.

Cool.

> > > The better approach is the one that is called 'multiarch'. That approach 
> > > will allow to install packages that have been built for a different 
> > > architecture, i.e. ppc64 packages on powerpc and amd64 packages on i386
> > > and vice versa. That approach needs a native ppc64 package archive to 
> > > provide the ppc64 packages that can be installed on powerpc.
> > 
> > Sure, but will it be ready for the etch timeframe ? I have seen no sign or it
> > being near mature enough to consider that, and i get the feeling that it might
> > well be possible for etch+1 timeframe.
> 
> Multiarch will not be ready for etch. But the same is true for a real
> biarch setup with a reasonable set of 64-bit packages.

Especially if nobody helps to make this happen.

> > And then you have to consider the archive problems, even now as we speak,
> > amd64 is not properly integrated in the main archives, and so i don't see a
> > near future with ppc64 inclusion, while a biarch setup would need no such
> > trouble, so it is also more pragmatic to go this way.
> 
> I never understood why amd64 had so much problems to get into 
> unstable and why it is still not in unstable now. However, it is

Politics, and mirror bandwidth issues.

> not that bad if a reliable archive is hosted on a separate machine.

He, tell that to the guys using ubuntu because they don't see amd64 as
officially supported by debian.

> The amd64 port is quite successful with this. Finally, I like to
> build the packages that I use on my own machines from source anyway.
> So I see the Debian archive more as a source archive which should
> provide source packages that can be built automatically for any
> architecture. This is working quite well for ppc64.

So, no need to bloat alioth for that.

> > And if you would start to propose us an extensive list of those libraries you
> > need, we could go somewhere, second time i ask you, or maybe third time, but
> > you didn't provide even a single such library.
> 
> OK, here is a small list. As a minimal requirement I need to link a 
> 64-bit client/server database application to 'libssl' for secure 
> communication over a TCP channel and to 'libx11' to display things on 
> the user screen. It would be nice if you could make those two libraries 
> available as 64-bit biarch packages. This would of course also be 
> interesting for i386/amd64. 

Ok, so libssl and the xorg libraries. you don't believe in the easy ones, do
you :) Maybe easier to start with libssl.

> This is not some arbitrary request. I am talking about a real application
> that is used for serious business purposes and that actually benefits from 
> a 64-bit environment.

Cool, and if we get those two, it will be enough for you ? Or do you need
others ? Maybe a ldd output of your app will help.

For X, i have the feeling that things will be easier once we get Xorg 7.0  and
its modular approach. But we will see, i will discuss this issue with the X
strike force once i have given libssl a try.

Not that i will have time for this before two weeks from now though.

Friendly,

Sven Luther