Re: [gentoo-mips] Reducing the number of the MIPS supported stages

[Joshua Kinard <kumba@gentoo.org>]

On 05/07/2014 03:06, Markos Chandras wrote:
> 
> There are usually blockers and stuff due to MIPS being ~arch but
> catalyst, as a tool, works fine.
> 
> The livecd stages and netboots, however, were much more
>> problematic.
> 
> I don't think we do that anymore

Haven't in a *long* time.  However, it's been on my todo list for a good
while now.  The thing that killed netboots was the great uclibc break
several years ago where a chicken-and-egg scenario arose.  To compile from
uclibc-0.9.27 to .28, you needed ~gcc-4.4 (I think, maybe it was 3.4...).
However, you couldn't compile the required version of gcc, linked against
uclibc, without the .28 version.  So that broke a *lot* of people.

I have no idea how that was eventually resolved, but without uclibc,
netboots at the time were just too massive for the SGI Indy's to boot.
You'd get a "Not enough space in a FreeMemeoryArea() from ARCS.

Though...nowadays, I think that ARCS error has something to do with byte
alignment and not size.  Seems if you compile things in or out of the kernel
to increase or decrease its size, you can get a size that ARCS will be happy
with.

LiveCDs, OTOH...I do not look forward to even attempting those.  The two SGI
LiveCDs I produced used Gnome GDM, which was possible without sucking in
half of Gnome back then, which is not possible today, as far as I know.  I
don't know what's a good login manager these days, but it might be back to
classic XDM if I do attempt the things.


>> If you can still send me at least one of your stage3 spec files, that'd be
>> appreciated.  It's been 5-6 years since I last messed with catalyst.  The
>> Octane was my build platform, but combined with the bitrot that prevented it
>> from booting, moving, a new job, etc, I never got around to setting up stage
>> building on the O2.  Now that I can boot Octane again, I can at least
>> recover my old spec files, though.  Might help if I ever attempt to tackle
>> the livecd or netboot builds again.
> 
> I will email you a complete set of stage1/2/3 for, say, mips3 and then
> it's easy to figure out what do change for the rest :)

</smirk>

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@gentoo.org
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."

--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic