Hi Adrian, On 2/25/25, 5:03 AM, "John Paul Adrian Glaubitz" <glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de <mailto:glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de>> wrote: >Hello Kurt, > >On Tue, 2025-02-25 at 02:49 +0000, Kurt Stine wrote: >> What would it take to have a debian build for the Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) >> CPU? >> >> Currently, due to overall Espresso weirdness, both GCC and glibc need to be >> patched >> for any applications to take advantage of all three cores. This means very >> application >> and library needs to be patched to be able to support smp on the Wii U. >> Debian powerpc >> will currently run on the Wii U, but due to the lack of patches, you are >> stuck with only >> a single core, and performance is extremely hampered by that. Adelie Linux >> currently >> has support for the Wii U, but it would be great to have a debian build. > > >I think it would be more reasonable to work on the kernel and glibc such that >rebuilding >all packages with a patched compiler should not be necessary. Given the very >low user >base, I don't think it would be justified to bootstrap a completely new Debian >port >for the Wii U.
Seeing how Wii Us are inexpensive and simple to boot linux on, I'd argue that the potential userbase of an Espresso port is significantly higher than x32 or hurd (both of which already have ports). Plus, there's already a large number of users who own one. >> The Wii U has three cores and 2GB of RAM, so it's relatively powerful >> machine for the >> price (you can find them for around $25 online). I'm also able to provide >> access to >> multiple if needed. > >The hardware isn't really the issue but the amount of work needed to maintain >such a >port. Such an endeavor would only be justified if the number of users is high >enough. See above. >> The smp patches are available here: >> https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches >> <https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches> > > >Wouldn't it be possible to upstream these? And do we really need to rebuild >all packages >to make use of all cores of the Wii U CPU? Even if the patches were upstreamed, every package would still need to be rebuilt with the "-mcpu=espresso" CFLAG enabled. Otherwise, the patches would not be applied. >> Currently, there is not a patch for LLVM, so any applications that are built >> with clang >> will not run on an smp-patched build. >> >> Any input is appreciated! > >If there is really no way other than rebuilding all packages, I would suggest >using a >source-based distribution such as Gentoo. Gentoo and other source-based distros aren't as end-user friendly as Debian. Up until now, Debian ppc has been the recommended choice for running Linux on the Wii U. Mainly because it's relatively easy to get support and documentation is widely available. You don't necessarily get that with other distros. Regards, Kurt
