Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook: powerpc (32bit) - and eventually ppc64el...

2016-01-19 Thread Mathieu Malaterre 
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 8:19 AM, Fadi Osman  wrote:
[...]
> Please contact us if you think there are subjects/packages we can work on.

Well the powerpc specific list(s) can be found using usertags:

Eg:

https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bts-usertags.cgi?user=debian-powerpc%40lists.debian.org

So for powerpc:

https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bts-usertags.cgi?tag=powerpc=debian-powerpc%40lists.debian.org

or ppc64:

https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bts-usertags.cgi?tag=ppc64=debian-powerpc%40lists.debian.org

2cts

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Lennart Sorensen 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 06:09:28AM +, Fadi Osman wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm contacting you on the behalf of the PowerPC Notebook project 
> team.(http://www.powerpc-notebook.org)
> As you might already know, we are a group of volunteers collaborating towards 
> building a notebook around the Freescale e6500 core (ALTIVEC and PowerIsa 
> 2.07).We are aiming at making the hardware FSF compliant (or at least Open).
> We will be using Debian ppc64 as our Operating System.
> 
> Is it possible for us to join you, essentially for the ppc64 port? 
> (development/bug fixing/testing...)
> 
> We would eventually also like to run ppc64el (but from my understanding, that 
> would be without ALTIVEC).
> Please contact us if you think there are subjects/packages we can work on.
> 
> Thanks a lot,and hoping to be of help.The PowerPC Notebook project team.
> 
> (NOTE: Some of us already have 32bit and 64bit PowerPC hardware running 
> Debian.)

I am curious why you want to run ppc64 rather than powerpc?  What benefit
is there to going 64bit for everything rather than just a few select
things (like a database perhaps that needs the memory space)?  After all
doubling the pointer size increases cache usage and memory bandwidth
usage, and on most architectures does not gain you anything except a
larger address space (x8a_646 being a huge exception since it doubled the
register count and dropped x87 and various other good things).

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Lennart Sorensen 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 01:35:42PM -0200, Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo wrote:
> To access more physical memory? But sure, they could run a 64-bit kernel
> with a 32-bit userspace.

That's certainly how I have been running larger powerpc machines for
years.

> But since this is going to be used as a laptop, I am thinking:
> 'Browsers!'.

Hmm, good point on the browser. :)

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 10:26:47AM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 06:09:28AM +, Fadi Osman wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I'm contacting you on the behalf of the PowerPC Notebook project 
> > team.(http://www.powerpc-notebook.org)
> > As you might already know, we are a group of volunteers collaborating 
> > towards building a notebook around the Freescale e6500 core (ALTIVEC and 
> > PowerIsa 2.07).We are aiming at making the hardware FSF compliant (or at 
> > least Open).
> > We will be using Debian ppc64 as our Operating System.
> > 
> > Is it possible for us to join you, essentially for the ppc64 port? 
> > (development/bug fixing/testing...)
> > 
> > We would eventually also like to run ppc64el (but from my understanding, 
> > that would be without ALTIVEC).
> > Please contact us if you think there are subjects/packages we can work on.
> > 
> > Thanks a lot,and hoping to be of help.The PowerPC Notebook project team.
> > 
> > (NOTE: Some of us already have 32bit and 64bit PowerPC hardware running 
> > Debian.)
> 
> I am curious why you want to run ppc64 rather than powerpc?  What benefit
> is there to going 64bit for everything rather than just a few select
> things (like a database perhaps that needs the memory space)?  After all
> doubling the pointer size increases cache usage and memory bandwidth
> usage, and on most architectures does not gain you anything except a
> larger address space (x8a_646 being a huge exception since it doubled the
> register count and dropped x87 and various other good things).
> 
> -- 
> Len Sorensen
> 

To access more physical memory? But sure, they could run a 64-bit kernel
with a 32-bit userspace.

But since this is going to be used as a laptop, I am thinking:
'Browsers!'.

Cascardo.


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Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Lennart Sorensen 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:55:12PM +, Fadi Osman wrote:
> Hello Len,
> I am checking with the others before answering you questions.
> But I remember one of the reasons is that we were worried that powerpc would 
> be eventually dropped in favor of ppc64 and ppc64el...

Well I see very little happening on ppc64 (ppc64el is doing fine), and
powerpc is doing fine.  There are a lot of 32 bit powerpc systems still
out there and as I was asking, I doubt ppc64 in general is actually an
improvement over powerpc for most userspace code.

ppc64el on the other hand is targetting very large machines running very
large data talking to little endian accalarator cards, so it makes sense
to go all 64bit (and little endian there), while I just don't see ppc64
making sense in the same way.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Lennart Sorensen 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:31:39PM +0100, Linux User #330250 wrote:
> Running 32-bit vs. 64-bit on powerpc makes me wonder… Is there a
> multilib version of Debian powerpc?

Well there are packages like lib64readline5 and libc6-ppc64 which
provide 64 bit libraries as part of 32bit debian powerpc.  And of course
64bit kernels are provided too.

> I've been running Gentoo and Debian on my Power Mac G4 and G5. To  me,
> the problem seemed to be that I could not run selected programs 64-bit
> (as suggested), because that would have meant to go for something
> similar to x86+amd64 multilib on powerpc/ppc64 – something a regular
> user is certainly unable to pull out of the hat.

Well some of it is there.  Of course with jessie, using multiarch and
installing selected packages from ppc64 onto a powerpc system should
work fine (except with binNMUs screw up a package from being multiarch
installable).

> Even chrooting into a 64-bit (or 32-bit) environment is a huge task for
> a regular user. (I compiled my own kernels and tried chroot, but in the
> end running pure ppc64 or pure ppc on Gentoo was the painless way of
> doing things, naturally except for the kernel.)
> 
> I still have my Power Macs.
> Going multilib would be great on powerpc!
> As would be out-of-the-box x86 emulation for binary-only programs.
> (qemu-user)

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Fadi Osman 
Hello Len,
I am checking with the others before answering you questions.
But I remember one of the reasons is that we were worried that powerpc would be 
eventually dropped in favor of ppc64 and ppc64el...
Thanks,Fadi.
 
  De : Lennart Sorensen <lsore...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
 À : Linux User #330250 <linuxuser330...@gmx.net> 
Cc : debian-powerpc <debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org>
 Envoyé le : Vendredi 4 décembre 2015 21h17
 Objet : Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.
   
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:31:39PM +0100, Linux User #330250 wrote:
> Running 32-bit vs. 64-bit on powerpc makes me wonder… Is there a
> multilib version of Debian powerpc?

Well there are packages like lib64readline5 and libc6-ppc64 which
provide 64 bit libraries as part of 32bit debian powerpc.  And of course
64bit kernels are provided too.

> I've been running Gentoo and Debian on my Power Mac G4 and G5. To  me,
> the problem seemed to be that I could not run selected programs 64-bit
> (as suggested), because that would have meant to go for something
> similar to x86+amd64 multilib on powerpc/ppc64 – something a regular
> user is certainly unable to pull out of the hat.

Well some of it is there.  Of course with jessie, using multiarch and
installing selected packages from ppc64 onto a powerpc system should
work fine (except with binNMUs screw up a package from being multiarch
installable).



> Even chrooting into a 64-bit (or 32-bit) environment is a huge task for
> a regular user. (I compiled my own kernels and tried chroot, but in the
> end running pure ppc64 or pure ppc on Gentoo was the painless way of
> doing things, naturally except for the kernel.)
> 
> I still have my Power Macs.
> Going multilib would be great on powerpc!
> As would be out-of-the-box x86 emulation for binary-only programs.
> (qemu-user)

-- 
Len Sorensen

Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo 
On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 04:05:18PM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:55:12PM +, Fadi Osman wrote:
> > Hello Len,
> > I am checking with the others before answering you questions.
> > But I remember one of the reasons is that we were worried that powerpc 
> > would be eventually dropped in favor of ppc64 and ppc64el...
> 
> Well I see very little happening on ppc64 (ppc64el is doing fine), and
> powerpc is doing fine.  There are a lot of 32 bit powerpc systems still
> out there and as I was asking, I doubt ppc64 in general is actually an
> improvement over powerpc for most userspace code.
> 
> ppc64el on the other hand is targetting very large machines running very
> large data talking to little endian accalarator cards, so it makes sense
> to go all 64bit (and little endian there), while I just don't see ppc64
> making sense in the same way.
> 

ppc64el also had a lot of improvements in ABI, which they could make,
since they didn't have to keep compatibility anyway.

Cascardo.

> -- 
> Len Sorensen
> 


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Re: Debian PowerPC and PowerPC Notebook.

2015-12-04 Thread Linux User #330250 
Hello!

Running 32-bit vs. 64-bit on powerpc makes me wonder… Is there a
multilib version of Debian powerpc?

I've been running Gentoo and Debian on my Power Mac G4 and G5. To  me,
the problem seemed to be that I could not run selected programs 64-bit
(as suggested), because that would have meant to go for something
similar to x86+amd64 multilib on powerpc/ppc64 – something a regular
user is certainly unable to pull out of the hat.

Even chrooting into a 64-bit (or 32-bit) environment is a huge task for
a regular user. (I compiled my own kernels and tried chroot, but in the
end running pure ppc64 or pure ppc on Gentoo was the painless way of
doing things, naturally except for the kernel.)

I still have my Power Macs.
Going multilib would be great on powerpc!
As would be out-of-the-box x86 emulation for binary-only programs.
(qemu-user)

Cheers,
Andreas  aka  Linux User #330250