On Tue, 2024-10-29 at 14:39 +1100, Finn Thain wrote: > On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, Michael Schmitz wrote: > > > On 25/10/24 22:55, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > > > > > I also expect that a lot of users (of m68k kernels) are never going to > > > get the benefits as they are already stuck on older userspace because > > > of added bloat in new software releases. I assume you have better > > > understanding than me of what m68k hardware is commonly used these > > > days, and how constrained that is in practice. > > > > I second that - currently bisecting to find out what makes my extremely > > RAM constrained m68k system fail to boot or run anything past 6.9-rc4 > > (sysvinit, not systemd). > > > > As cloud instances multiply, that small quantity of lost RAM gets > multiplied. So it appears that small systems aren't so strange, even after > they become unprofitable...
Yes, who doesn't know the cloud instances with 64 MB RAM. Those are today's standard. > > Much as I appreciate Adrian's efforts to keep up with user space > > development, I won't be in a position to help with an ABI change. > > > > Bloated m68k packages will continue to work -- given emulators that run > faster with every hardware upgrade. But how would such a distro add value? You can easily upgrade Amigas to 256 MB or more these days. The aftermarket provides a lot of affordable upgrades these days. > I don't mind if Gentoo ships a separate profile for (downstream) ABI > experimentation, leaving the default m68k profile on the standard ABI. The Gentoo developers will be glad to hear that you don't mind. Do you think they need a written permission from you? > And if Debian wants to switch ABI entirely, I won't object further, I've > said enough about the associated risks. > > So I'll just reiterate that I'd rather see more collaboration instead - > > 1) among all small systems ports, to try to alleviate Debian's package > dependency problem That dependency chain comes from upstream, not from Debian. > 2) among all developers working on non-commercial architectures, to > improve the GCC Rust frontend GCC Rust uses parts of the upstream Rust code, so you can expect the same problems there as well. > 3) among all 680x0 developers interested in the NetBSD ABI The alignment issue affects NetBSD as well. > 4) among all users of EOL'd hardware, so that value may continue to be > extracted from it (thanks to the efforts of Debian and Gentoo devs, > among others). Software will run faster with 32-bit alignment, not slower. Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer `. `' Physicist `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
