Thanks for your reply, Frans.  As for the enhancement requests for e2fsprogs 
and s390-tools to respect and support the RECOMP option of CMS minidisks, those 
are not distribution specific.  I would hope that they could be bumped 
upstream.  In theory, partman is not distribution-specific either, and, in 
theory, could also be bumped upstream.  However, if other distributions do not 
use partman in their installers or post-install packages, there may be little 
interest in the enhancement.

As for me, I am a z/VM Systems Programmer, I do have an interest, I do have 
some time, and I do have access to z/VM and mainframe hardware.  And I would be 
glad to assist you in testing.  What I don't have is expertise in C.  I can 
barely spell C.  My background is as a mainframe applications programmer and 
systems programmer, with IBM S390 assembler language programming skills, 
FORTRAN programming skills, and PL/I programming skills.  But C is another 
story.  So I can't code anything, probably, but I can serve as a resource for 
mainframe and z/VM information and I can probably help you test some things.  
Perhaps between the two of us we can work something out.

For what it's worth, the S390 Linux community is a vibrant one.  But most 
mainframe shops seem to run either Suse or Red Hat.  I'm playing around with 
Debian on S390 because that's what I run at home and that's what I know best.  
I'm going to be attending a class next week taught by IBM on how to install 
Linux on System z, and I'm sure that they will talk pretty much exclusively 
about Suse and Red Hat, both of which are commercial distributions and both of 
which are IBM "partners".  I've attended Linux for S390 install classes before, 
but it's been about five years and it's time for an update.  In the process of 
taking the class, I'm going to be privately trying to determine if there is any 
strategic advantage to those distros other than a support contract.

Let me know if there's anything I can do.


--- On Mon, 6/16/08, Frans Pop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Frans Pop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Bug#486549: The single partition present on a CMS minidisk is 
> not supported (s390/s390x only)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Monday, June 16, 2008, 3:39 PM
> tag 486549 help
> severity 486549 wishlist
> thanks
> 
> On Monday 16 June 2008, Stephen Powell wrote:
> > The single partition implicitly created on a z/VM
> minidisk by the CMS
> > FORMAT command (and optionally, the CMS RESERVE
> command) is not
> > recognized by partman.
> 
> Your request is no doubt completely valid, as is the one to
> extend zipl 
> (#486526). However, you should be aware that the main
> challenge for the 
> Debian s390 port is the current total lack of involvement
> from the 
> s390-using community.
> 
> Effectively this probably means that unless you or someone
> else can 
> motivate people who have an interest, the skills and access
> to hardware 
> needed to implement the needed changes, it is very unlikely
> that any 
> progress will be made. Therefore I'm tagging this bug
> report 'help'.
> 
> The Debian Installer team will of course be more than happy
> to help those 
> people to get started and find their way in the D-I
> components and build 
> system.
> 
> Cheers,
> FJP


      


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