Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
On Tue, 29 Apr 2014, Sébastien Bernard wrote: Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). We are fixing issues at this moment. I have some problem to know the bugs numbers that are high priority and sparc-only, however, I have time and a little knowledge to check the problems. There are so many ML to read, I may have missed important call, but reading all mails from 2 years ago is a bit too much. If you need maintainer for sparc, just tell how to become one. IMHO, the sparc architecture needs more tests and bug filling than knowledgeable people. just to keep this thread going: what could be the ultimate prioritized list of issues with sparc to be resolved? I believe we have no arch tags in Debian BTS to filter easily...? https://buildd.debian.org/status/architecture.php?a=sparc might be handy but would take time to drill down the packages to approach first from my side -- I am already providing CI for few upstream projects on SPARC build boxes (under sid and wheezy) so they enter Debian sparc-ready. This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a possible replacement). P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities... I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I understand: arm*, mips*, ... Why not dropping the m68k port too then ? moreover eBay is full of cheap but nice sparc boxes which corporations get rid of soon after official support terminates, so by tackling cheap sparcs Debian might at large support the architecture popular in industry. -- Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D. http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org Research Scientist,Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept. Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755 Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834 Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419 WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140508140518.gx8...@onerussian.com
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Hi, On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to stop providing similar unique testing opportunity for those projects, which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more geeky gratitude for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support. Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a possible replacement). P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities... I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I understand: arm*, mips*, ... Ansgar -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535f75e4.7020...@debian.org
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit : Hi, Hello, On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to stop providing similar unique testing opportunity for those projects, which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more geeky gratitude for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support. Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html It's the main problem. There are too much kernel issues to use Linux on sparc/sparc64. Last sparc kernel maintainers were leon4 developers and last sparc64 stable kernel was 2.6.32. I have a lot of sparc/sparc64 servers (sun4u _and_ sun4v) and today, no one is stable enough. All servers randomly crash and I have a lot of strange issues with LSI SAS adapters on T. We can do best effort to remain sparc/sparc64 alive, but without a real effort to keep kernel usable and stable, there is no solution. Today, only four T1000 runs on Linux. I think that I will reinstall these servers with xBSD as soon as possible. This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a possible replacement). P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities... I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I understand: arm*, mips*, ... JKB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535f7bbe.4030...@systella.fr
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Le 29/04/2014 12:15, Joël BERTRAND a écrit : Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit : Hi, Hello, On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to stop providing similar unique testing opportunity for those projects, which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more geeky gratitude for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support. Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html It's the main problem. There are too much kernel issues to use Linux on sparc/sparc64. Last sparc kernel maintainers were leon4 developers and last sparc64 stable kernel was 2.6.32. I have a lot of sparc/sparc64 servers (sun4u _and_ sun4v) and today, no one is stable enough. All servers randomly crash and I have a lot of strange issues with LSI SAS adapters on T. We can do best effort to remain sparc/sparc64 alive, but without a real effort to keep kernel usable and stable, there is no solution. Today, only four T1000 runs on Linux. I think that I will reinstall these servers with xBSD as soon as possible. Hi Joël, could you point the bugs for the kernel that is plagging you. Maybe, we can do a call-to-arm on lkml to check if old porter wants to revive the flame or attract some new one. As a matter of fact, two new bugs have been unveiled with a little bit of time that shows only on sparc. If think there is still knowledge inside the community. I'll step up but I don't have much knowledge about the internals of SPARC, however, I spend more than my share on linux. I'm neither dd nor d-porter. I'm willing to learn. Cheers. Seb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535f85bd.9010...@nerim.net
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Le 29/04/2014 12:58, Sébastien Bernard a écrit : Le 29/04/2014 12:15, Joël BERTRAND a écrit : Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit : Hi, Hello, On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to stop providing similar unique testing opportunity for those projects, which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more geeky gratitude for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support. Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html It's the main problem. There are too much kernel issues to use Linux on sparc/sparc64. Last sparc kernel maintainers were leon4 developers and last sparc64 stable kernel was 2.6.32. I have a lot of sparc/sparc64 servers (sun4u _and_ sun4v) and today, no one is stable enough. All servers randomly crash and I have a lot of strange issues with LSI SAS adapters on T. We can do best effort to remain sparc/sparc64 alive, but without a real effort to keep kernel usable and stable, there is no solution. Today, only four T1000 runs on Linux. I think that I will reinstall these servers with xBSD as soon as possible. Hi Joël, could you point the bugs for the kernel that is plagging you. Maybe, we can do a call-to-arm on lkml to check if old porter wants to revive the flame or attract some new one. Strange deadlocks on all sun4u and sun4v. I have tried to bissect without any result and if I have tried to debug sparc/sparc64 kernels some time ago, today I haven't time enough to fix these bugs. sun4m : last stable kernel was 2.4.21. All 2.4 kernels crash with OPB Watchdog Reset or NMI interrupt messages. HyperSPARC support is unusable. sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. All kernels since 2.6.33 hang with a deadlock or similar issue (UP and SMP) on U1E, U2, U5, U60, U80, U420, Blade2000. I have done some bug reports to David Miller some time ago. sun4v : I have several T1000 for a long time. I haven't seen any stable kernel on these servers. These T1000 randomly crash and I never seen uptime greater thant one month. I have to hard reboot these servers with ILOM powercycle command (!). Same constations with T2 CPU. I have two Sun fire T1000 and two Sun enterprise T1000. On one of these servers, I'm unable to boot recent kernel (last bootable kernel is 2.6.32), as SAS LSI adapter driver is totaly broken. I don't understand as both Sunfire have the same P/N. I'm sure that it's not an faulty hardware as I have run SunVTS to check. I have done some BR directly to David Miller without any result. The same driver is totaly broken in SMP between 3.2 and 3.12 kernel and I have patched official kernel to boot on my Enterprise with all CPU threads ! As a matter of fact, two new bugs have been unveiled with a little bit of time that shows only on sparc. If think there is still knowledge inside the community. I'll step up but I don't have much knowledge about the internals of SPARC, however, I spend more than my share on linux. I'm neither dd nor d-porter. I'm willing to learn. Regards, JKB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535f8ebf.2000...@systella.fr
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Hi Sébastien, Sébastien Bernard wrote: Why not dropping the m68k port too then ? It has been droppend many years ago. P.S.: I appreciate your effort a lot! Thanks! Regards, Axel -- ,''`. | Axel Beckert a...@debian.org, http://people.debian.org/~abe/ : :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin `. `' | 1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE `-| 4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329 6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140429130200.gs6...@sym.noone.org
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Le 29/04/2014 11:50, Ansgar Burchardt a écrit : Hi, On 04/29/2014 04:14 AM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: With Debian dropping support for sparc unfortunately I would need to stop providing similar unique testing opportunity for those projects, which would not be the end of the world, but kinda a pity since sparcs seems to be quite nice and which helped to gain more geeky gratitude for Debian being somewhat unique in its spread of support. Having people find the sparc port useful or using it is however not enough to maintain it. There needs to be a commitment to fix issues and to respond to inquiries about the current status. However there is currently *nobody* doing this as demonstrated by the lack of replies to the release teams concerns (see all the bits from the release team mails on debian-devel-announce@ since the Wheezy release). We are fixing issues at this moment. I have some problem to know the bugs numbers that are high priority and sparc-only, however, I have time and a little knowledge to check the problems. There are so many ML to read, I may have missed important call, but reading all mails from 2 years ago is a bit too much. If you need maintainer for sparc, just tell how to become one. IMHO, the sparc architecture needs more tests and bug filling than knowledgeable people. Axel Beckert was the only one who stepped up as a porter for sparc, but he cannot look into the (existing) toolchain and kernel issues[1]. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2014/04/msg00034.html This needs to change or it is not realistic for Debian to be able to keep this port (and I'm not sure sparc64 is in a much better state as a possible replacement). P.S. I wondered now if somehow we could attract students taking some 'advanced computer architecture' courses at the universities... I personally would be more interested in an architecture where one can actually purchase current hardware (sparc servers on oracle.com seem to start at ~20k USD). There are quite a lot of those for what I understand: arm*, mips*, ... Ansgar Why not dropping the m68k port too then ? I thought that debian was opensource and not driven by market share or anything like that ? Seb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535f97f9.3050...@nerim.net
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Joël BERTRAND wrote: sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. All kernels since 2.6.33 hang with a deadlock or similar issue (UP and SMP) on U1E, U2, U5, U60, U80, U420, Blade2000. I have done some bug reports to David Miller some time ago. I've got 3.2.35 running to fairly good effect on multiple systems (E4500, U60 etc.) with an uptime of at least weeks. 3.2.0 from Wheezy fails when running a heavy mix on a V880. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/ljoa99$l6f$1...@pye-srv-01.telemetry.co.uk
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
Le 29/04/2014 15:02, Axel Beckert a écrit : Hi Sébastien, Sébastien Bernard wrote: Why not dropping the m68k port too then ? It has been droppend many years ago. P.S.: I appreciate your effort a lot! Thanks! Regards, Axel My mistake, I thought the M68k was stil an official port. Anyway, SPARC hardware is cheap to buy. I saw on ebay V240/V440 for 50/100 euros and even T5520 for 280 dollars. So, it's quite easy to lay a hand on sparc hardware. S. Bernard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/535fa9e4.6030...@nerim.net
Re: Bug#745938: FWIW -- I consider sparc useful, pity if its support ends completely
On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 8:43 AM, Mark Morgan Lloyd markmll.debian-sp...@telemetry.co.uk wrote: Joël BERTRAND wrote: sun4u : kernel is stable until 2.6.32. All kernels since 2.6.33 hang with a deadlock or similar issue (UP and SMP) on U1E, U2, U5, U60, U80, U420, Blade2000. I have done some bug reports to David Miller some time ago. I've got 3.2.35 running to fairly good effect on multiple systems (E4500, U60 etc.) with an uptime of at least weeks. 3.2.0 from Wheezy fails when running a heavy mix on a V880. We need to start consolidating these issues into one place so that interested parties can look into them. I care about sun4u working and will attempt to fix kernel issues. Let's create a new thread / bug report for that. Is there some kind of wiki space for debian-sparc? -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-sparc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/ljoa99$l6f$1...@pye-srv-01.telemetry.co.uk
