[x86-64] AMD Dev Center usage proposal

[Falk Hueffner]

Bart Trojanowski <bart@jukie.net> writes:

> 4) ability to build a 64-bit kernel natively
>   - Arnd has done some progress here, but last I heard the work was not
>     yet completely finished
>   - I would like to support two streams of kernel packages 2.4 and 2.5
>   - we should be able to build, install, and boot a 2.4.20+ kernel.
>   - we should be able to build, install, and boot a recent 2.5.* kernel.

I think we should concentrate on one kernel first. Assuming it is not
totally broken currently, I'd prefer 2.4, since it is less of a moving
target.

> 5) port init script tools
>   - ability to get to a prompt with only 64-bit binaries
>   - sysvinit, util-linux, sh, grep, etc.
> 
> 6) port remainder of the 'base' packages
>   - this will be the majority of the effort (IIRC 50+ packages)

If we manage to install a build daemon, I suppose this won't be
actually all that much effort. I think we should try that right after
step 4.

Other things to do:

* Choose a name for the port. I vote for amd64, since it avoids the
  nasty - vs _ problems and is also more likely to be recognized by
  people in the future. I suppose "x86-64" is going the way of
  "axp"...

* Hack dpkg to understand the new architecture.

* Make the ftp people create the new architecture in the archive.

-- 
	Falk