Dear all,
recently a kernel package for ia64 appeared on ftp.p.d.o and hence I
thought it might be a good time to give it a try to create a Debian
GNU/Linux Sid for ia64 FS with `debootstrap` from Sid but executing from
a Debian Wheezy installation. After some trial and error I was
successful - at least to some degree.
Many thanks to all people that were/are involved in getting Debian back
on Itanium. :-)
## Long story short ##
1. The kernel image provided by [1] does not work on my rx2620 but
panics early:
```
[ 0.000000] Linux version 4.17.0-rc7-mckinley
(debian-ker...@lists.debian.org) (gcc version 7.3.0 (Debian 7.3.0-18))
#1 SMP Debian 4.17~rc7-1~exp1 (2018-05-29)
[...]
[ 0.052000] Kernel panic - not syncing: corrupted stack end detected
inside scheduler
[ 0.052000]
[ 0.052000] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: corrupted stack end
detected inside scheduler
[ 0.052000] ]---
[ 1.048000] random: fast init done
[ 53.528000] random: crng init done
```
[1]:
http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/pool-ia64/main/l/linux/linux-image-4.17.0-rc7-mckinley_4.17~rc7-1~exp1_ia64.deb
..but I remember I could successfully run a v4.15.11 Debian kernel
(though built under Debian Wheezy with the .config of the Wheezy kernel
as basis for `make oldconfig`) on this machine in mid of April. I
currently run the Sid FS with the v3.14.x kernel from Wheezy backports
and the `klibc-utils` from Wheezy.
2. The currently available `klibc-utils` (for the initramfs) on Sid are
broken for ia64 (most likely due to no longer being built as static
binaries like in Wheezy, see [2] for details). When executed most tools
segfault, others (without interpreter, meaning non-shared) do not:
```
root@rx2620:/usr/lib/klibc/bin# file cat zcat
cat: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, IA-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically
linked, interpreter /lib/klibc-LUey2dkAvJnuUY2c2omL8wPG9DQ.so, stripped
zcat: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, IA-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically
linked, stripped
root@rx2620:/usr/lib/klibc/bin# ./cat /proc/cpuinfo
Segmentation fault
root@rx2620:/usr/lib/klibc/bin# lscpu | gzip -c | ./zcat
Architecture: ia64
[...]
Model name: Dual-Core Intel(R) Itanium(R) Processor 9020
[...]
```
...whereas on Wheezy the tools (also without interpreter!) work without
issue:
```
root@rx2620:/tmp/wheezy/usr/lib/klibc/bin# file cat zcat
cat: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, IA-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically
linked, stripped
zcat: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, IA-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically
linked, stripped
root@rx2620:/tmp/wheezy/usr/lib/klibc/bin# ./cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor : GenuineIntel
arch : IA-64
family : 32
model : 0
model name : Dual-Core Intel(R) Itanium(R) Processor 9020
[...]
```
[2]:
https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/klibc/commit/07809ffd86e1e4ca5a4e98e4708a1c1fae10babf
I don't have a clue how to rebuild the `klibc-utils` package in this Sid
FS with some of the build dependencies missing. So could someone please
rebuild them with the ia64 parts of [2] reverted and upload a new
package to ftp.p.d.o?
Cheers,
Frank
