[gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Ferris McCormick]

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Chrissie,
  Here is the ad we have in the forums for sparc ATs.  I think it covers
almost everything.
=======================================
Recently sparc instituted a Sparc AT (architecture testing) subproject
to help with the general testing process associated with the normal bug
fixing and package upgrade process. This subproject currently has three
members and is proving to be quite successful. Consequently, we would
like to expand the AT team to provide more coverage. While no specific
hardware is required (other than a sparc64 system, of course), nor any
specific application, we are especially interested in expanding the
capability to test: 

        
        
      * Sound applications on sparc; 
      * KDE/Gnome; 
      * Server applications (mail servers, name servers, apache, and so
        on). 


The general requirements are sparc hardware, demonstration of some sparc
experience, and enthusiasm. In becoming an AT, you will go through a
mentoring process, and at the end will successfully complete Gentoo's
ebuild quiz, which is here:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/quiz/ebuild-quiz.txt 

If you are interested, please review the sparc AT documentation here
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/sparc/at/ then contact either
jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org or fmccor@gentoo.org for further information and
processing. Note that if you are interested in becoming a sparc
developer, the path AT --> developer is not only reasonable but also
encouraged.

===================================================

Questions or comments are of course welcome.
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc)


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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Alex Buell]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:33:53 +0000, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Ferris McCormick:

>       * Sound applications on sparc; 
>       * KDE/Gnome; 

What about OpenOffice? 
-- 
http://www.munted.org.uk

Fearsome grindings.
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Hi.

Alex Buell wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:33:53 +0000, I waved a wand and this message
> magically appears in front of Ferris McCormick:
> 
>>       * Sound applications on sparc; 
>>       * KDE/Gnome; 
> 
> What about OpenOffice? 

After reading your question I got curious and went looking for sparc
keywords on OpenOffice. I was initially surprised to see -sparc, but
after running a quick grep I found out why.

grep -i -n3 sparc /usr/portage/app-office/openoffice/ChangeLog | head -n 20

So it seems we would also benefit from some testing to get back the
~sparc keywording for OpenOffice. As STLport-5.1.2 is marked stable on
sparc, we will need to check if we have any other bugs blocking OOo.
Will you be interested in doing some testing for other C++ apps/libs?

- --
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / SPARC
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Alex Buell]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:37:24 +0000, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto:

> So it seems we would also benefit from some testing to get back the
> ~sparc keywording for OpenOffice. As STLport-5.1.2 is marked stable on
> sparc, we will need to check if we have any other bugs blocking OOo.
> Will you be interested in doing some testing for other C++ apps/libs?

Yes, I would be very much interested in testing and reporting problems
with OpenOffice builds. That and the lack of a suitable Java VM on that
platform is one of my biggest annoyances with the UltraSparc platforms.
-- 
http://www.munted.org.uk

Fearsome grindings.
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Jim Watson]

Alex Buell wrote:
> Yes, I would be very much interested in testing and reporting problems
> with OpenOffice builds. That and the lack of a suitable Java VM on that
> platform is one of my biggest annoyances with the UltraSparc platforms.
>   
There is information about testing OpenOffice.org here:
http://qa.openoffice.org/ooQAReloaded/Docs/QA-Reloaded-HowToStart.html

If a problem is found, the first step is to decide if it is "upstream" 
or is it a problem for the distribution.
The best way to know this is to try and reproduce a problem in the 
upstream build.
Google for "contrib/linuxsparc" for the upstream sparc binaries.

It is also needed to find if a problem is sparc related - test on 
different platforms. I can help you with that.

There are currently not any bugs upstream that are specific to sparc.

I am not a gentoo user, but doing the upstream OOo port for sparc

jim
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Alex Buell]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:41:59 +1000, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Jim Watson:


> It is also needed to find if a problem is sparc related - test on 
> different platforms. I can help you with that.
> 
> There are currently not any bugs upstream that are specific to sparc.
> 
> I am not a gentoo user, but doing the upstream OOo port for sparc

Right, I've tried unmasking the OOO ebuild on sparc and building it -
it stopped with an error probably ~50% though. I can try this again and
file bug reports if that's necessary? 

As for there being a lack of a Java VM on sparc, if anyone's working on
porting Sun's JVM, I can help with testing the builds.

Regards,
Alex
-- 
http://www.munted.org.uk

Fearsome grindings.
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Ferris McCormick]

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On Wed, 2007-09-26 at 14:25 +0100, Alex Buell wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:41:59 +1000, I waved a wand and this message
> magically appears in front of Jim Watson:
> 
> 
> > It is also needed to find if a problem is sparc related - test on 
> > different platforms. I can help you with that.
> > 
> > There are currently not any bugs upstream that are specific to sparc.
> > 
> > I am not a gentoo user, but doing the upstream OOo port for sparc
> 
> Right, I've tried unmasking the OOO ebuild on sparc and building it -
> it stopped with an error probably ~50% though. I can try this again and
> file bug reports if that's necessary? 
> 
> As for there being a lack of a Java VM on sparc, if anyone's working on
> porting Sun's JVM, I can help with testing the builds.

Supposedly, this is very hard to hopeless (according to sun).  There are
more promising alternatives, such as jamvm or perhaps cacao.  I have
played a bit with jamvm, and I think it could be made to work.  It's
mostly a matter of figuring out what order the arguments to a couple
macros which are used for test-and-swap are given, and making a few
memcopy macros work right.  I've had it running; just not quite
correctly.

jamvm (or something like it) would make a very nice project.  Sun java
would probably not (I think sun have it on their to-do list, but
considered long-term and difficult).

If you want to be an AT, please set it up with jmbsvicetto or with me;
it's mostly a matter of getting you through the ebuild quiz.
> Alex
> -- 
> http://www.munted.org.uk
> 
> Fearsome grindings.

Regards,
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc)


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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Alex Buell]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:49:10 +0000, I waved a wand and this message
magically appears in front of Ferris McCormick:

> > As for there being a lack of a Java VM on sparc, if anyone's
> > working on porting Sun's JVM, I can help with testing the builds.
> 
> Supposedly, this is very hard to hopeless (according to sun).  There
> are more promising alternatives, such as jamvm or perhaps cacao.  I
> have played a bit with jamvm, and I think it could be made to work.
> It's mostly a matter of figuring out what order the arguments to a
> couple macros which are used for test-and-swap are given, and making
> a few memcopy macros work right.  I've had it running; just not quite
> correctly.

I thknk gcj could do the job just as well. It can compile to bytecode. 
 
> jamvm (or something like it) would make a very nice project.  Sun java
> would probably not (I think sun have it on their to-do list, but
> considered long-term and difficult).

I think it's enormously vital that Sun get off their butts and do
something about it - porting the linuxintel version to linuxsparc
should work. I've actually dug around in the jvm sources and they do
have some assembly in various places. These would have to be rewritten
for the sparc platform. 

> If you want to be an AT, please set it up with jmbsvicetto or with me;
> it's mostly a matter of getting you through the ebuild quiz.

Thanks
Alex
-- 
http://www.munted.org.uk

Fearsome grindings.
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Jim Watson]

Alex Buell wrote
>
> I thknk gcj could do the job just as well. It can compile to bytecode. 
>  
>   
with ecj it is good enough for OpenOffice.org anyway

>> jamvm (or something like it) would make a very nice project.  Sun java
>> would probably not (I think sun have it on their to-do list, but
>> considered long-term and difficult).
>>     
>
> I think it's enormously vital that Sun get off their butts and do
> something about it - porting the linuxintel version to linuxsparc
> should work. I've actually dug around in the jvm sources and they do
> have some assembly in various places. These would have to be rewritten
> for the sparc platform. 
>   
blackdown (jk) ported sun 1.5 for sparc and it would run fine, I built 
and used it here, but there was some apparently random signal error that 
has blocked it being released...

jim
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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Ferris McCormick]

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On Thu, 2007-09-27 at 08:16 +0100, Alex Buell wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:49:10 +0000, I waved a wand and this message
> magically appears in front of Ferris McCormick:
> 
> > > As for there being a lack of a Java VM on sparc, if anyone's
> > > working on porting Sun's JVM, I can help with testing the builds.
> > 
> > Supposedly, this is very hard to hopeless (according to sun).  There
> > are more promising alternatives, such as jamvm or perhaps cacao.  I
> > have played a bit with jamvm, and I think it could be made to work.
> > It's mostly a matter of figuring out what order the arguments to a
> > couple macros which are used for test-and-swap are given, and making
> > a few memcopy macros work right.  I've had it running; just not quite
> > correctly.
> 
> I thknk gcj could do the job just as well. It can compile to bytecode. 
>  
jamvm is a java machine, not a compiler.

> > jamvm (or something like it) would make a very nice project.  Sun java
> > would probably not (I think sun have it on their to-do list, but
> > considered long-term and difficult).
> 
> I think it's enormously vital that Sun get off their butts and do
> something about it - porting the linuxintel version to linuxsparc
> should work. I've actually dug around in the jvm sources and they do
> have some assembly in various places. These would have to be rewritten
> for the sparc platform. 
> 
Interesting.  Do you think it would be easier to port from linux intel
than from solaris/sparc?  That might make a lot of sense.

(Depending on how much assembly code there is, and whether anyone can
read it.  How much is needed outside, perhaps, the atomic operations
like atomic_add or test_and_set?)

> > If you want to be an AT, please set it up with jmbsvicetto or with me;
> > it's mostly a matter of getting you through the ebuild quiz.
> 
> Thanks
> Alex
> -- 
> http://www.munted.org.uk
> 
> Fearsome grindings.

Thanks and regards,
-- 
Ferris McCormick (P44646, MI) <fmccor@gentoo.org>
Developer, Gentoo Linux (Devrel, Sparc)


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Re: [gentoo-sparc] GWN "Want ad" for sparc architecture testers

[Jim Watson]

Alex Buell wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:41:59 +1000, I waved a wand and this message
> magically appears in front of Jim Watson:
>
>
>   
>> It is also needed to find if a problem is sparc related - test on 
>> different platforms. I can help you with that.
>>
>> There are currently not any bugs upstream that are specific to sparc.
>>
>> I am not a gentoo user, but doing the upstream OOo port for sparc
>>     
>
> Right, I've tried unmasking the OOO ebuild on sparc and building it -
> it stopped with an error probably ~50% though. I can try this again and
> file bug reports if that's necessary? 
Post the tail from the build log, the last 20 or so lines is usually 
enough.  If you make a bug report please email me where it is.

thanks

jim


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