Our mips64el support is really really dead

Our mips64el support is really really dead

[Efraim Flashner]

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Three initial bits about Guix's support for mips64el:
1. We stopped producing a standalone installer for mips64el before the
1.0 release, which means it's been years since anyone has been able to
install it without help. Actually, 0.12 was the last version¹, back in
2016.
2. We supported the Lemote Fuloong 2F²/Loongson 2 (MIPS III) processors.
Except for very specific sticks of RAM, it only supported 1GB of RAM. As
for the processor, I believe most other distributions moved to the
Loongson 3 as their base. Debian³ 9 (in 2017) it seems switched to
Loongson 3A/3B based machines for their Loongson support.
3. "Generic" --target=mips64el-linux-gnu support from the GNU toolchain
doesn't support Loongson 2 chips, it needs some extra flags. I tested
this a few years ago and wasn't able to run a cross-compiled package on
one of our decommissioned mips64el build machines (citation needed).

I suggest that we stop cross-compiling packages to mips64el since it is
really dead-dead, and not just mostly-dead or nearly-dead.

¹ https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_microprocessor_specifications
³ https://www.debian.org/ports/mips/

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Re: Our mips64el support is really really dead

[Ludovic Courtès]

Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> skribis:

> I suggest that we stop cross-compiling packages to mips64el since it is
> really dead-dead, and not just mostly-dead or nearly-dead.

Agreed.

Maybe send a patch, Cc’ing guix-devel, and apply after two weeks if
there are no objections?

Ludo’.

Re: Our mips64el support is really really dead

[Christopher Baines]

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Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> writes:

> Three initial bits about Guix's support for mips64el:
> 1. We stopped producing a standalone installer for mips64el before the
> 1.0 release, which means it's been years since anyone has been able to
> install it without help. Actually, 0.12 was the last version¹, back in
> 2016.
> 2. We supported the Lemote Fuloong 2F²/Loongson 2 (MIPS III) processors.
> Except for very specific sticks of RAM, it only supported 1GB of RAM. As
> for the processor, I believe most other distributions moved to the
> Loongson 3 as their base. Debian³ 9 (in 2017) it seems switched to
> Loongson 3A/3B based machines for their Loongson support.
> 3. "Generic" --target=mips64el-linux-gnu support from the GNU toolchain
> doesn't support Loongson 2 chips, it needs some extra flags. I tested
> this a few years ago and wasn't able to run a cross-compiled package on
> one of our decommissioned mips64el build machines (citation needed).
>
> I suggest that we stop cross-compiling packages to mips64el since it is
> really dead-dead, and not just mostly-dead or nearly-dead.

What does this mean for mips64el-linux as a system? I have considered
asking about this in the past because keeping it around does have a cost
and we're not trying to build for it.

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Re: Our mips64el support is really really dead

[Mark H Weaver]

Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> writes:
> I suggest that we stop cross-compiling packages to mips64el since it is
> really dead-dead, and not just mostly-dead or nearly-dead.

Agreed, it's dead.  We can drop the Loongson workarounds in our binutils
packaging as well.

      Thanks
        Mark