[gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[David Cummings]

I have a couple of questions I hope someone can shed some light on.
First, if I did a stage1 install using -mabi=32, I am using a o32
userland? Second, if I wanted to move to a n32 userland, without
reinstalling from netboot, what would be the steps involved?  A change
of profile, emerge system && emerge world? or emerge --newuse --deep
world all in itself. And thirdly, if I want to compile a 64-bit
binary, the gcc I am currently using, mips-unknown-linux-gnu, claims
it is unable to produce an executable. Will the -mabi=n32 one be OK?
Thanks in advance,
-Dave
-- 
The way that can be named is not the Way.

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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[Stephen P. Becker]

David Cummings wrote:
> I have a couple of questions I hope someone can shed some light on.
> First, if I did a stage1 install using -mabi=32, I am using a o32
> userland?

Yes.

> Second, if I wanted to move to a n32 userland, without
> reinstalling from netboot, what would be the steps involved?  A change
> of profile, emerge system && emerge world? or emerge --newuse --deep
> world all in itself.

Currently, this would require a complete reinstall.  In any case, n32
userland is really not ready for general consumption yet.  There are
known bugs that we haven't squashed, and that could cause serious pain
to end users.

> And thirdly, if I want to compile a 64-bit
> binary, the gcc I am currently using, mips-unknown-linux-gnu, claims
> it is unable to produce an executable.

Of course it can't.  It has no 64-bit library to link the binary
against.  However, you should still be able to build 64-bit object
files, and other programs that don't need a libc (like the kernel).

> Will the -mabi=n32 one be OK?

If you do install n32 userland, your toolchain will be
mips64-unknown-linux-gnu, and will produce n32 userland binaries just
fine via -mabi=n32.  However, then -mabi=32 and -mabi=64 won't work,
since there are no o32 or n64 libs to link against.  Makes sense, yes?

-Steve
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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[David Cummings]

>Makes sense, yes?
Surprisingly, yes. 
It remains to be seen how much I broke doing it the quick and dirty
way (unpacking stage3 tarball on a running system), but for now, apps
are compiling in n32 userland! Thanks.
-Dave
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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[Hardave Riar]

David Cummings wrote:
> It remains to be seen how much I broke doing it the quick and dirty
> way (unpacking stage3 tarball on a running system), but for now, apps
> are compiling in n32 userland! Thanks.

Well you probably just completely buggered up your box. And until you fix your 
userland we're not going to be supporting any problems of yours that come up. 
N32 is fragile enough as is, and like geoman has said is not for general user 
use, those stages at this point are mostly only for developer use.

Hardave
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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[Stephen P. Becker]

David Cummings wrote:
>>Makes sense, yes?
> 
> Surprisingly, yes. 
> It remains to be seen how much I broke doing it the quick and dirty
> way (unpacking stage3 tarball on a running system), but for now, apps
> are compiling in n32 userland! Thanks.
> -Dave

Ugh, that wasn't quick and dirty.  Rather, it was quick and silly.  I
strongly urge you to format that disk and do a proper install.
Furthermore, you really shouldn't use n32 unless you really know what
you are doing, which I'm not sure of if you did an install like this.
It will only cause headaches.  For example, it seems like threaded apps
trigger a nasty bug in the kernel that causes a segfault and oops on n32
userland only, which effectively eliminates a great part of the portage
tree from being installed and used.  I really meant it earlier when I
said n32 wasn't for end users yet.

-Steve
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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[Stuart Longland]

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Stephen P. Becker wrote:
> David Cummings wrote:
>
>>Second, if I wanted to move to a n32 userland, without
>>reinstalling from netboot, what would be the steps involved?  A change
>>of profile, emerge system && emerge world? or emerge --newuse --deep
>>world all in itself.
> 
> Currently, this would require a complete reinstall.  In any case, n32
> userland is really not ready for general consumption yet.  There are
> known bugs that we haven't squashed, and that could cause serious pain
> to end users.

I'll vouch for this.  Yes, I do have a machine (an Indigo 2 Impact,
a.k.a IP28) running a n32 userland.  So far, I've been damn lucky with
the machine, and most things, *just work*.  KDE 3.3.2 IMHO runs like a
dream.

KDE 3.4.1 however is a whole different ballgame, very unstable...
sneeze, and the whole damn thing falls in a heap.

As yet, I have not successfully compiled Gnome on this system either.

It's better than it was... but it's still got a long way to go. :-)

If you're extremely brave, then sure, run a n32 root.  Otherwise, what
I'd suggest... create a directory called /n32... and unpack the stage
tarball in there.  Then, when you want to play with n32, just `chroot
/n32`, and away you go. :-)

I'm already doing something similar to try and build up some sort of n64
userland, as well as an n32 image for MIPS3 (the current ones are MIPS4).
-- 
 ____                   _             Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter)
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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[David Cummings]

Hey all,
   Just wanted to let you all know your advice is very much
appreciated. Luckily for me, I must've done something right, because
everything is OK. I am running into troubles here and there, but they
are clearly due to the particular app's source, and not the userland.
It's been up 4 days now with everything compiled with n32. This is
nice. Thanks!
-- 
The way that can be named is not the Way.

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Re: [gentoo-mips] n32 userland

[Stephen P. Becker]

David Cummings wrote:
> Hey all,
>    Just wanted to let you all know your advice is very much
> appreciated. Luckily for me, I must've done something right, because
> everything is OK. I am running into troubles here and there, but they
> are clearly due to the particular app's source, and not the userland.
> It's been up 4 days now with everything compiled with n32. This is
> nice. Thanks!

*sigh*

Just one more plea for sanity here.  Do not use n32!  It has a *serious* 
problem with threaded apps on recent kernel versions.  I'm not kidding. 
  Your system will break, and the only way you will be able to fix it 
will be to format the drive and put o32 userland back on it.

-Steve
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