[gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Agostino Sarubbo]

In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I have no 
interest) because they appears understaffed.

Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since the dev-
machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no ISO[2] available and 
there is no handbook[3] for it.

The same thing is for S390/S390X/M68K/. So how I am able to install one of 
that _supported_ arches if there isn't any sort of guide?

An interesting fact is that we have an handbook for MIPS[4], a declared 
unsupported architecture (does not make sense for me).

Another example is that we have no stable keyword on GCC/glibc for m68k and I 
don't know if I need to use another compiler or another libc.

Checking on bugzilla I saw no report for some of those arches, so for me that 
_partially_ means that probably there are very few users for those arches on 
gentoo.

Now, imho, we have 2 choice:

1)Support them with an iso or at least a manual if we can't do an handbook
2)Lose the stable keyword and don't waste manpower anymore.

What do you think about?

Ref:
[1]: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/dev-machines.xml
[2]: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml
[3]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/#doc_chap2
[4]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-
mips.xml?style=printable&full=1
-- 
Agostino Sarubbo / ago -at- gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[William Hubbs]

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On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 05:03:43PM +0100, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> Now, imho, we have 2 choice:
> 
> 1)Support them with an iso or at least a manual if we can't do an handbook
> 2)Lose the stable keyword and don't waste manpower anymore.

We also have another choice if there is so little interest in these
arch's.

3) get rid of their keywords entirely.

If there is no manual, no installation cd, no stages, and no supported way to
install on an arch, why keep it?

William


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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Sonntag, 17. Februar 2013, 17:03:43 schrieb Agostino Sarubbo:
> In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I have no
> interest) because they appears understaffed.
> 
> Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since the dev-
> machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no ISO[2] available
> and there is no handbook[3] for it.
> 

Not having an ISO is not really an issue. After all CD drives are something 
fairly modern :D... 

Joking aside, I can imagine architectures where it's preferable to set up a 
stage directly from a running maintenance system (maybs s390???). Also, none 
of my arm gadgets comes with a CD drive, so I had to e.g. prepare the stage on 
a memory card with another box.

That said, blindly stabilizing more and more stuff on dying arches certainly 
is a waste of time.

-- 
Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer 
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Andreas K. Huettel
<dilfridge@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Joking aside, I can imagine architectures where it's preferable to set up a
> stage directly from a running maintenance system (maybs s390???). Also, none
> of my arm gadgets comes with a CD drive, so I had to e.g. prepare the stage on
> a memory card with another box.

I wonder if there is a market for selling pre-imaged core planes with
Gentoo in ramfs?

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Markos Chandras]

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Hash: SHA512

On 02/17/2013 04:03 PM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I
> have no interest) because they appears understaffed.
> 
> Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since
> the dev- machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no
> ISO[2] available and there is no handbook[3] for it.
> 
> The same thing is for S390/S390X/M68K/. So how I am able to install
> one of that _supported_ arches if there isn't any sort of guide?
> 
> An interesting fact is that we have an handbook for MIPS[4], a
> declared unsupported architecture (does not make sense for me).
> 
> Another example is that we have no stable keyword on GCC/glibc for
> m68k and I don't know if I need to use another compiler or another
> libc.
> 
> Checking on bugzilla I saw no report for some of those arches, so
> for me that _partially_ means that probably there are very few
> users for those arches on gentoo.
> 
> Now, imho, we have 2 choice:
> 
> 1)Support them with an iso or at least a manual if we can't do an
> handbook 2)Lose the stable keyword and don't waste manpower
> anymore.
> 
> What do you think about?
> 
> Ref: [1]:
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/dev-machines.xml [2]:
> http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml [3]:
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/#doc_chap2 [4]:
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook- 
> mips.xml?style=printable&full=1
> 

First you need to tell us what arches you think they are considered
'minor' and/or understaffed so we can finally document that. Then, in
my opinion, the ideal approach would be to just drop the stable
keywords for them.

- -- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang
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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Agostino Sarubbo]

On Sunday 17 February 2013 19:36:16 Markos Chandras wrote:
> First you need to tell us what arches you think they are considered
> 'minor' and/or understaffed so we can finally document that. Then, in
> my opinion, the ideal approach would be to just drop the stable
> keywords for them.

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/index.xml#doc_chap4
I don't see project page for: m68k, sh, s390


20:41 <ago> expn m68k
20:41 <willikins> m68k = vapier,
20:41 <ago> expn sh
20:42 <willikins> sh = vapier,matsuu,armin76,ago,
20:42 <ago> expn s390
20:42 <willikins> s390 = vapier,armin76,ago,
-- 
Agostino Sarubbo / ago -at- gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Markos Chandras]

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Hash: SHA512

On 02/17/2013 07:43 PM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> On Sunday 17 February 2013 19:36:16 Markos Chandras wrote:
>> First you need to tell us what arches you think they are
>> considered 'minor' and/or understaffed so we can finally document
>> that. Then, in my opinion, the ideal approach would be to just
>> drop the stable keywords for them.
> 
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/index.xml#doc_chap4 I don't see
> project page for: m68k, sh, s390
> 
> 
> 20:41 <ago> expn m68k 20:41 <willikins> m68k = vapier, 20:41 <ago>
> expn sh 20:42 <willikins> sh = vapier,matsuu,armin76,ago, 20:42
> <ago> expn s390 20:42 <willikins> s390 = vapier,armin76,ago,
> 
I am not sure what are you trying to prove here. No project page does
not mean the arch is minor or dead or whatever. Moreover, you see that
there are devs in these arches. Did you try to talk to them? I also
asked for a list of minor arches and you didn't provide one. I
presume, you think that m68k, sh, and s390 are minor? What about ia64,
ppc? Do we have enough manpower there? Because iirc there arches also
lack in stabilization bugs as well.

- -- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang
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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Agostino Sarubbo]

On Sunday 17 February 2013 20:22:00 Markos Chandras wrote:
> I am not sure what are you trying to prove here. 

I point out that there is not iso, no manual, no manpower.


> No project page does  not mean the arch is minor or dead or whatever.

For me this means that there is no enough support.

> Moreover, you see that there are devs in these arches. Did you try to talk  
> to them? 

For what purpose? I'm asking a general opinion based on some facts.

> I also asked for a list of minor arches and you didn't provide one. I
> presume, you think that m68k, sh, and s390 are minor? 

Yes, they can be. Seriously, who has an m68k? do you see reports/requests on 
bugzilla?


> What about ia64, ppc? Do we have enough manpower there? Because iirc there 
arches also lack in stabilization bugs as well.

https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=STABLEREQ%2C%20&keywords_type=allwords&f1=cc&o1=equals&query_format=advanced&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=IN_PROGRESS&v1=ppc%40gentoo.org&product=Gentoo%20Linux&list_id=1560890
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=STABLEREQ%2C%20&keywords_type=allwords&f1=cc&o1=equals&query_format=advanced&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=IN_PROGRESS&v1=ia64%40gentoo.org&product=Gentoo%20Linux&list_id=1560892

I don't see big queue for those arches.
-- 
Agostino Sarubbo / ago -at- gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Alec Warner]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Agostino Sarubbo <ago@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sunday 17 February 2013 19:36:16 Markos Chandras wrote:
>> First you need to tell us what arches you think they are considered
>> 'minor' and/or understaffed so we can finally document that. Then, in
>> my opinion, the ideal approach would be to just drop the stable
>> keywords for them.
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/index.xml#doc_chap4
> I don't see project page for: m68k, sh, s390
>
>
> 20:41 <ago> expn m68k
> 20:41 <willikins> m68k = vapier,
> 20:41 <ago> expn sh
> 20:42 <willikins> sh = vapier,matsuu,armin76,ago,
> 20:42 <ago> expn s390
> 20:42 <willikins> s390 = vapier,armin76,ago,

Afaik sh and s390 were both vapier-driven projects. I'd recommend
chatting with him as to whether they are worth salvaging. It is not
clear to me why you would email the -dev list about these arches,
vapier is pretty responsive over email and irc.

-A

> --
> Agostino Sarubbo / ago -at- gentoo.org
> Gentoo Linux Developer
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Agostino Sarubbo]

On Sunday 17 February 2013 13:14:28 Alec Warner wrote:
> It is not
> clear to me why you would email the -dev list about these arches,
> vapier is pretty responsive over email and irc.

I don't guess is a good idea have a private conversation and then drop an 
arch...
-- 
Agostino Sarubbo / ago -at- gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux Developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Markos Chandras]

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On 02/17/2013 08:40 PM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> On Sunday 17 February 2013 20:22:00 Markos Chandras wrote:
>> I am not sure what are you trying to prove here.
> 
> I point out that there is not iso, no manual, no manpower.

No manual does not mean no manpower.

> 
>> Moreover, you see that there are devs in these arches. Did you
>> try to talk to them?
> 
> For what purpose? I'm asking a general opinion based on some
> facts.

The first step you need to do when you seek activity reports is to
contact the teams/project members.

> 
>> I also asked for a list of minor arches and you didn't provide
>> one. I presume, you think that m68k, sh, and s390 are minor?
> 
> Yes, they can be. Seriously, who has an m68k? do you see
> reports/requests on bugzilla?

I don't know who has or has not. What's the point of that question?

- -- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang
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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Markos Chandras]

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On 02/17/2013 09:30 PM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> On Sunday 17 February 2013 13:14:28 Alec Warner wrote:
>> It is not clear to me why you would email the -dev list about
>> these arches, vapier is pretty responsive over email and irc.
> 
> I don't guess is a good idea have a private conversation and then
> drop an arch...
> 

Drop an arch? Who said that? We are talking about moving arches to
~testing.

- -- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang
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Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Anthony G. Basile]

On 02/17/2013 11:03 AM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I have no
> interest) because they appears understaffed.
>
> Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since the dev-
> machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no ISO[2] available and
> there is no handbook[3] for it.
>
> The same thing is for S390/S390X/M68K/. So how I am able to install one of
> that _supported_ arches if there isn't any sort of guide?
>
> An interesting fact is that we have an handbook for MIPS[4], a declared
> unsupported architecture (does not make sense for me).
I am supporting mips for the Lemote loongson2f and for the Atheros 
AR7161.  I'm trying to get my hands on a godson and Stuart will be 
sending me two fulongs, which you can add to that list.  Don't let the 
fact that MIPS is a ~arch fool you.  I don't think we should make it a 
fully supported arch because of the number of ISA's and ABI's and 
endiannesses (if such a word exists).  It is impossible to test for all 
combos which is what stable should mean.

So don't even think of dropping MIPS!  Just leave it ~arch and I'll give 
it love.

As far as the other arches go, I'm interested in: amd64, arm, mips, ppc, 
ppc64 and x86.

>
> Another example is that we have no stable keyword on GCC/glibc for m68k and I
> don't know if I need to use another compiler or another libc.
>
> Checking on bugzilla I saw no report for some of those arches, so for me that
> _partially_ means that probably there are very few users for those arches on
> gentoo.
>
> Now, imho, we have 2 choice:
>
> 1)Support them with an iso or at least a manual if we can't do an handbook

ISOs don't make sense on all hardware.  Eg. I offer an netboot image for 
the lemotes.

> 2)Lose the stable keyword and don't waste manpower anymore.

I agree, but please keep at least the ones I mention above.  Other devs 
may have different ideas.

>
> What do you think about?
>
> Ref:
> [1]: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/dev-machines.xml
> [2]: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml
> [3]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/#doc_chap2
> [4]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-
> mips.xml?style=printable&full=1


-- 
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : blueness@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP  : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB  DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA
GnuPG ID  : F52D4BBA

[gentoo-dev] Re: The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Duncan]

Markos Chandras posted on Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:36:53 +0000 as excerpted:

> On 02/17/2013 09:30 PM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
>> On Sunday 17 February 2013 13:14:28 Alec Warner wrote:
>>> It is not clear to me why you would email the -dev list about these
>>> arches, vapier is pretty responsive over email and irc.
>> 
>> I don't guess is a good idea have a private conversation and then drop
>> an arch...
>> 
>> 
> Drop an arch? Who said that? We are talking about moving arches to
> ~testing.

Time again for the periodic "minor archs" discussion, apparently...

While I have no direct personal interest in anything under discussion 
here, two observations, FWIW...

1) Having the private conversation (presumably with vapier) first, 
collecting information that could then go in the post to -dev, would seem 
useful.  Doing anything without talking to him first is inappropriate in 
any case (as would be doing anything without a discussion on -dev, both 
would seem required), and that would have made the -dev conversation more 
useful, sooner.

2) That said, without pre-existing knowledge, no project page and etc 
makes it difficult to even find the person one should have a conversation 
with, in which case mailing -dev is at least some way to initialize the 
conversation.  At least a "stub" project page, with contact info and some 
minimal description of the arch, perhaps a link to its page on wikipedia, 
when the project was started on gentoo and its goals, etc, could be 
useful.

Which brings us full circle to the initial post, no project page or 
contact info, let's change that, either creating at least some minimal 
project pages with contact info at minimum (preferred if they are to be 
kept), or if that's considered not worth the bother, then really, why are 
they worth the bother to other gentooers at all, they should be dropped?

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Markos Chandras]

On 17 February 2013 22:46, Anthony G. Basile <blueness@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 02/17/2013 11:03 AM, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
>>
>> In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I have
>> no
>> interest) because they appears understaffed.
>>
>> Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since the
>> dev-
>> machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no ISO[2] available
>> and
>> there is no handbook[3] for it.
>>
>> The same thing is for S390/S390X/M68K/. So how I am able to install one of
>> that _supported_ arches if there isn't any sort of guide?
>>
>> An interesting fact is that we have an handbook for MIPS[4], a declared
>> unsupported architecture (does not make sense for me).
>
> I am supporting mips for the Lemote loongson2f and for the Atheros AR7161.
> I'm trying to get my hands on a godson and Stuart will be sending me two
> fulongs, which you can add to that list.  Don't let the fact that MIPS is a
> ~arch fool you.  I don't think we should make it a fully supported arch
> because of the number of ISA's and ABI's and endiannesses (if such a word
> exists).  It is impossible to test for all combos which is what stable
> should mean.
>
> So don't even think of dropping MIPS!  Just leave it ~arch and I'll give it
> love.

I agree with you. MIPS is not going away and the reason we only
support ~mips is like you said the vast diversity in hardware and
software components. But I think nobody said to drop MIPS right? ;)

>
> As far as the other arches go, I'm interested in: amd64, arm, mips, ppc,
> ppc64 and x86.

ppc and ppc64 used to lack manpower. They appear to be in a better
state now that Agostino is doing mass stabilisations for them, but I
am not sure if the packages are actually tested during runtime or they
are just tested for build problems.



-- 
Regards,
Markos Chandras - Gentoo Linux Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Raúl Porcel]

On 02/17/13 17:03, Agostino Sarubbo wrote:
> In the last time I'm helping some other arches (also arches which I have no 
> interest) because they appears understaffed.
> 
> Days ago, I tried to make a virtual machine with qemu, for SH since the dev-
> machine[1] is a bit slow; well, I discovered we have no ISO[2] available and 
> there is no handbook[3] for it.
> 
> The same thing is for S390/S390X/M68K/. So how I am able to install one of 
> that _supported_ arches if there isn't any sort of guide?
> 

Like ARM, most SH devices don't have a CDROM drive, so thats why there's
no ISO. Like I told you, the way to install onto those kind of machines
is either tftpbooting or putting the disk into another machine and
configure it from there. I've installed all my ARM and SH machines using
the latter.

The reason for not having a manual is like ARM, there are specific
boards which require different configurations, kernels, bootloaders,
etc. Same reason as why there's no ISO, some boards couldn't even boot
from the CDROM, and you'll need a kernel for each board, etc...

I've always thought that whoever has a SH board, m68k, or access to a
s390 machine, and wants to use Gentoo, is smart enough to do it by itself.

Re: [gentoo-dev] The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Agostino Sarubbo <ago@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Now, imho, we have 2 choice:
>
> 1)Support them with an iso or at least a manual if we can't do an handbook
> 2)Lose the stable keyword and don't waste manpower anymore.
>
> What do you think about?

I haven't seen many problems, except one point: that m68k seems to
have much the same level of activity as mips, and it would be nice if
we could drop it down in the little CC list on Bugzilla (to the
unstable arches part).

Cheers,

Dirkjan

[gentoo-dev] Re: The status of the 'minor' arches in gentoo

[Ryan Hill]

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On Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:31:41 +0100
Dirkjan Ochtman <djc@gentoo.org> wrote:

> I haven't seen many problems, except one point: that m68k seems to
> have much the same level of activity as mips, and it would be nice if
> we could drop it down in the little CC list on Bugzilla (to the
> unstable arches part).

s390 and sh could also be included in that list IMHO.  But if their maintainers
want to spend their time dealing with stabilization then that's not our call.


-- 
gcc-porting
toolchain, wxwidgets            learn a language baby, it's that kind of place
@ gentoo.org                   where low card is hunger and high card is taste

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