[gentoo-releng] ppc outlines for the release

[Lars Weiler <pylon@gentoo.org>]

Hi all,

I had a talk about the release with corsair last Friday and
tried to point out some things for ppc32 and ppc64.

Although ppc64 is able to use multilib, we would do separate
releases.  Well, we could include two squashfs on the LiveCD
and boot separate kernels, but that will only stress our
mirrors as every ppc-user has to download stuff he (mostly)
does not need.

ppc32 prerelease LiveCDs will be ready soon (I just need to
run livecd-stage2 when I get genkernel to work properly ;)).
If it's possible we would like to mirror them like x86 and
let some users with brand-new Apple-hardware test them.  Our
kernel will be 2.6.12 (I use that snapshot), as this one
gives much more support for new Apples.  I will include two
or three kernels on the LiveCD: common Apple, Pegasos and
probably RS/6000.  Still we need a confirmation if initramfs
works on Pegasos (I guess not, or only with the patch
plasmaroo had to create for the Itaniums).

ppc32 is missing a 2005.1-profile!  This is urgent and must
be done soon, so that I can test it.  Changes would be to
create profiles for G3, G4, Pegasos, rs6k and OldWorld.
Mostly some USE-Flags must be set or another default
bootloader.

ppc64 has a nice new profile, but it seems that there are
some hickups ;-)

We want to cut the support of too many stages and GRP-sets.
My aim is:
* ppc32-generic (ppc60x, G3/ppc75x)
* ppc32-altivec (G4/ppc74xx)
* ppc64

That means stripping G3 and G5 ppc32 stages and GRP.  The
difference between ppc-generic and G3 is too small that we
need separate stages for it.  The main-difference on ppc32
is altivec-enabled/-disabled what gives enormous performance
boosts.  G5-ppc32-stages will also vanish, as ppc64 is able
to provide multilib-support, running 32/64-bit-userland with
a 64-bit-kernel, like on amd64.  And so a 32-bit-only system
makes no sense.


My personal problem is that I had to switch from the Pegasos
to a PowerMac 533 as my release-build-machine.  But somehow
that machine is not much slower than the Pegasos, so that I
think I can create the stages and LiveCD on my own (needs
about 14 hours for stage1-3).  But I really need help in the
GRP-bulding.  If we want to provide kde-meta, the machine
will need more than three days for a complete GRP build...
But I already talked to corsair that I may get an account on
his Dual-G5 and can build the stages in a chroot.  Or I'll
come over to him for a cup of coffee (hey, he lives in my
10km-bicycle-radius! :-) ), while the GRP-set builds.

So far the status of ppc-release-building.  If you have any
comments (I hope, I told everything correct about ppc64),
just reply to this message or reach me on IRC (when I'm
online ;) ).

Regards, Lars

-- 
Lars Weiler  <pylon@gentoo.org>  +49-171-1963258
Gentoo Linux PowerPC    : Developer and Release Engineer
Gentoo Infrastructure   : CVS Administrator
Gentoo Foundation       : Trustee
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