Hi!
On Sat, 06 Oct 2018, h...@zytor.com wrote:
> Painful question, but I feel it needs to be asked.
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: hpa at zytor dot com <sourceware-bugzi...@sourceware.org>
> Sent: October 6, 2018 10:17:11 AM PDT
> To: h...@zytor.com
> Subject: [Bug libc/10339] Terminal interface: non-standard baudrates are not
> handled properly on Linux-systems
>
> https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10339
>
> --- Comment #12 from hpa at zytor dot com <hpa at zytor dot com> ---
> ...
>
> Current we support a minimum of 3.2 kernel and the following architectures
> (using Linux terminology):
>
> alpha
>
> ...
>
> So on the kernel side we have done some archaeology and found out that Alpha
> is
> the ONLY architecture which hasn't supported these features as far back as
> 3.2.
> It seems Alpha was left out because of lack of clarity between the Alpha and
> tty maintainers, which then never got addressed.
>
> Alpha is a historic architecture at this point -- the last Alpha chip was the
> EV7z which was released 14 years ago. I am wondering to what extent anyone
> cares enough to worry about support for new glibc on old Alpha kernels at this
> point; I kind of suspect the number of Alpha Linux users can be counted on two
> hand's fingers.
I'm the arch team lead for Alpha on Gentoo (team lead is sounding
more grandiose than it is, my team is me and Matt Turner). Gentoo
Linux is the last major distribution that still offers current
alpha support, after Debian stopping to do so a few years back.
It's hard to say how many alpha users there still are, but we
still get bug reports and while #gentoo-alpha on Freenode is not
a particularly busy place, we still get walk-in users with
questions, usually about the the boot process and installing.
Seeing as glibc is a central piece to Linux userspace, it ending
support would probably mean that within a year or so, we (Gentoo
Linux) stop supporting it for stable stuff, and thus security
updates. Since that state would be unlikely to change in the
future, we would probably make one last set of release
files/media and then close up shop.
How much bother is it to keep maintaining alpha as a supported
target for glibc? Ultimately, it's a question if people want to
put in the time. There will always be users as long as there is
a supporting Linux distro, I guess.
Best,
Tobias
--
Sent from aboard the Culture ship
GSV Zero Gravitas
