On 8/26/18 10:53 AM, Dennis Clarke wrote: > The real problem is that we are running a dead platform. At the very > least it is being walked up to the hangmans platform. The world seems > to want little endian everywhere and ppc64el on at least POWER8 hardware > is a firm requirement for Debian. While it is snazzy to have an old > Apple PowerMac G5 running linux we are spitting into the wind here. I > figure similar things will happen with RISC-V if that ever gets going. > Little endian is the prevailing wind direction there also. There isn't > any sort of RISC-V hardware yet. Not anything remotely close to a real > "standard" or even "popular". Whatever that means.
Meh, m68k is even older and still very much maintained. Just because a single thing doesn't work out of the box, doesn't mean it's completely broken or dead. > Anyways, I had to boot this old G5 with the Debian 8.10 install DVD and > then manually fiddle with the stuff old yaboot wants. It would be "cool" > and fun to get Debian unstable running on it. Why not? It has two dual > core PPC970MP processors and 8GB of memory in it. Seems a shame to toss > it onto the scrap heap. However plenty of money is pouring into the new > and snazzy IBM POWER9 world with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 as a valid > and supported commercial grade product. That is the direction that the > big "money" wants and the big "money" always wins. Period. Opensource > and community be damned. I have been around ya know? Too much unrelated ranting. > So I am a big big fan of risc platforms and would love to see a valid > linux distro running on risc platforms such as ppc64 and RISC-V and yes > the big massive sparc64 and even little arm. However there is little > promise for big endian ppc64 anymore. There isn't even the promise that > compilers and debuggers will work for much longer. Uhm, ppc64 is perfectly maintained upstream. In fact, it's the best ports architecture we have because IBM takes care of the big-endian PPC64 code as well. > I follow along on the changelogs at kernel.org and no one cares if ye > old PowerMac G5's are running sweetly. If people aren't reporting bugs, developers can't fix them. > A more reasonable direction is a POWER9 platform such as the Talos II > from the folks at Raptor Computing Systems or an IBM POWER9 ripping fast > server. Anything other than ye old silver Apple PowerMac G5 would be a > better choice. However, having said all that, you can boot and run a > linux kernel and a userland on a toaster or twenty year old HP Kayak PC > if you like. I know that I have. Again, too much ranting. If you think all is lost and putting efforts in Debian Ports is pointless, you're in the wrong forum. Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
