From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: csanchezdll@gmail.com (Carlos =?utf-8?Q?S=C3=A1nchez?= de La Lama) Subject: Re: Hello from powerpc Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2016 14:34:04 +0100 Message-ID: <7th97exhrn.fsf@gmail.com> References: <7t8tsvrah4.fsf@gmail.com> <87k2cftvec.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39265) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c5By7-0004yY-Iy for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 11 Nov 2016 08:34:12 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1c5By4-0004Mj-FF for guix-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 11 Nov 2016 08:34:11 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87k2cftvec.fsf@gnu.org> ("Ludovic \=\?utf-8\?Q\?Court\=C3\=A8s\=22'\?\= \=\?utf-8\?Q\?s\?\= message of "Mon, 07 Nov 2016 11:51:55 +0100") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hi!, >> $ /gnu/store/ynpd0qpppl0fdh252wns87d158pbdx8q-hello-2.10/bin/hello >> Hello, world! >> >> $ uname -a >> Linux bilbo 3.16.0-4-powerpc #1 Debian 3.16.36-1+deb8u1 (2016-09-03) ppc >> GNU/Linux > > Woohoo! Congrats! \o/ Thanks :) >> I am unsure on the best way to integrate my changes upstream. I have to >> review some of the patches I sent those last weeks, some of which >> required minor changes to be accepted, and send some new ones to the >> list. > > Sure. Just ask if in doubt. Slowly progressing, quite busy with lately. I will try to address pending comments on patches I already sent (and which are required for powerpc support) before sending the new ones. There is nothing really complex, the patches are rather simple (as usual, once you know what to patch ;) ) > Ideally we=E2=80=99d provide binaries for that architecture, but for that= we=E2=80=99d > need at the very least two build machines. Do you have an idea as how > we could get donations for that? Perhaps we could discuss it with the > Talos folks, they may be interested in having more free software > developers working on PPC. I don't really have any ideas. I work in a tech startup which has nothing to do with GUIX, so no luck here. My interest in GUIX is purely personal. About asking the Talos people, I wonder how much sense it does as their product is powerpc64 and what I have bootstrapped is powerpc32. I feel powerpc32 is almost dead now (I even read today Debian is dropping support on next Debian 9) so it only has interest for those having an old machine around. It might have some users on the embedded market (there are still some FPGAs with powerpc cores inside AFAIK), but I wont expect getting much industrial support/donations. > If we fail to do that, I think we=E2=80=99ll can still have the patches i= n but > prominently mark the platform as =E2=80=9Cunofficially supported=E2=80=9D= or something > along these lines (like Debian does). If after a couple of years the > situation hasn=E2=80=99t improved, we might want to discuss whether to dr= op > it. That would be enough, for starters, I think. Making it "unofficially supported" and see how much interest it brings. Maybe Debian dropping powerpc support makes all those powerpc users around look at GUIX to keep their systems up-to-date. > Does cross-compilation to powerpc-linux-gnu work in current master? > If/when it does, we can ask Hydra to cross-build a few things, like we > already do for other targets: Not in current master, I think. At least some minor patches are required. Anyways, rebuilding the bootstrap binaries is not so hard (they are cross-build, so I do it in a bigger x86 machine), but everytime the bootstrap binaries change, everything must be rebuilt on the target machine as they are root to all dependency graphs (am I correct on this?). That's why I would like to "fix" the bootstrap binaries (like on current supported targets, where bootstrap binaries were generated some time ago and actual binaries have not changed since). In any case, I think first step is have the patches needed for bootstrap generation in master, then generate the binaries, and at that point we can fix them. BR Carlos --=20 'La vie est une longue chute, Marcus. Le plus important est de savoir tombe= r.' Jo=C3=ABl Dicker, "La V=C3=A9rit=C3=A9 sur l'affaire Harry Quebert" (2012)