Re: [ql-developers] Linux Q40 Update

2003-12-17 Thread Richard Zidlicky

On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 01:19:47AM +0100, Thierry Godefroy wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:37:44 +0100, Richard Zidlicky wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > a short roundup of issues I am messing with:
> > 
> > !!! WARNING !!! Kernel 2.4.18 (probably anything <2.4.21)
> > will eat filesystems on disks>137GB.
> 
> * chuckles * I didn't even figured out how to get this damned
> atari_fdisk to properly enable and setup extended partitions,
> so my 20Gb HD is pretty much underused already...

strange, that was not the slightest problem for me.. currently
there are 2x60GB disks under the hood. At least you dont have
to think about the 137 GB problem.

> > plenty of updated user packages and libs
> > 
> > gcc issues:
> > 
> >  - libgcc_so in gcc3.3 is incompatible with previous versions
> >due to a change (a real improvement actually ;) in m68k exception
> >handling and version number wasnt bumped accordingly.. this makes
> >system upgrades not practical for average user.
> 
> No chance to install the two libraries in parallele ?

would work, but each approach has some drawbacks: 
 - different so-numbers, also different than the rest of the world,
   forgetting to patch a new gcc release would result in problems.
   I am not really sure if the version numbers could ever meet again.
 - different libdir, different loadpath. Default ld.so cant do that
   without help.. supposedly it is possible to hardcode ldpath into
   the old binaries but I have never tried.

Even worse, having 2 versions of libgcc_so would probably mean
to keep 2 version of some other c++ libs.
So far I simply ignore the few hundred c++ programs that are broken
by the new libs in the hope to get them recompiled soon.

> 
> So a gcc v3.2 or 3.3 for the Q60 soon ?  :-)

perhaps 3.4, the coreutils/sha1 problem turned out to be very
likely another 3.3.x bug.. one of those really nasty to debug
ones.

> > On an obscure sidetrack of development, I have a functional
> > but slightly buggy native ocaml compiler for m68k
> > (http://www.ocaml.org/).. needed a fast and reliable RAD
> > language to update the dated, slow and insecure cgi scripts  
> > in the Q40 distribution.
> 
> RAD ?

rapid application development, buzzword but you get the idea.
It beats most other langauages when comparing lines of code
length while still beeing slightly more readable than APL or
perl.
Ocaml is also one of the few high level languages that can beat
the speed of compiled c on many tasks.

Richard


Re: [ql-developers] Linux Q40 Update

2003-12-16 Thread Thierry Godefroy

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:37:44 +0100, Richard Zidlicky wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> a short roundup of issues I am messing with:
> 
> !!! WARNING !!! Kernel 2.4.18 (probably anything <2.4.21)
> will eat filesystems on disks>137GB.

* chuckles * I didn't even figured out how to get this damned
atari_fdisk to properly enable and setup extended partitions,
so my 20Gb HD is pretty much underused already...

> Newer kernels will not eat anything but only use max 137GB
> on the Q40. The problem is well understood but not trivial
> to fix in a way that preserves compatibility and is clean
> enough to get accepted into mainstream. Actually, even
> a quick and dirty fix is anything but easy.

Not a big deal... Even on PCs, many 'old' (read 'one or to years
old' !) BIOSes don't even accept hard drives over 60Gb... at least
there is no stupid BIOS to impose such limits on the Q60.

> Kernel 2.6 didnt boot last time I looked.. problem was probably
> introduced around 2.5.99+, appears like an issue with the fragmented
> Q40 memory map.
> 
> rpm-4.2x works well with a patch ;)
>
> glibc-2.3 works :)

Cool !  v2.1 is really limitating and some software can't be ported
to the Q40/Q60 because of that (e.g. IceWM v1.2.x).

> plenty of updated user packages and libs
> 
> gcc issues:
> 
>  - libgcc_so in gcc3.3 is incompatible with previous versions
>due to a change (a real improvement actually ;) in m68k exception
>handling and version number wasnt bumped accordingly.. this makes
>system upgrades not practical for average user.

No chance to install the two libraries in parallele ?

>  - patches to improve 68060 performance available (longlong
>instructions are most affected)

Everything that can squeeze the latest drop of power out of the 68060
is a Good Thing(tm) :-)
BTW, who could we bribe, at Motorola, so that they relaunch the 68060
production with modern technology ?... I'm still dreaming about a 2GHz
68060... I bet it would not be ridiculous at all when compared to
Intel/AMD's over-complicated and bloated processors...

>  - ide-cd ICE problem may have been fixed in CVS according to
>  http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12008
>but I didnt have a chance to test yet. For gcc-3.0 I use
>a dirty workaround that simply disables the failing sanity check
> 
>  - global register variables problem still survives every
>attempt to get fixed properly.
>  http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=7871

So a gcc v3.2 or 3.3 for the Q60 soon ?  :-)

> Current showstopper on the way to an updated distribution
> is coreutils - sha1sum produces wrong results and I need
> to figure out whether it is gcc or coreutils bug before
> proceeding.

Check the Mandrake site: they updated coreutils recently (I don't
remember exactly why though).

> On an obscure sidetrack of development, I have a functional
> but slightly buggy native ocaml compiler for m68k
> (http://www.ocaml.org/).. needed a fast and reliable RAD
> language to update the dated, slow and insecure cgi scripts  
> in the Q40 distribution.

RAD ?

Thierry.


[ql-developers] Linux Q40 Update

2003-12-15 Thread Richard Zidlicky

Hi,

a short roundup of issues I am messing with:

!!! WARNING !!! Kernel 2.4.18 (probably anything <2.4.21)
will eat filesystems on disks>137GB.

Newer kernels will not eat anything but only use max 137GB
on the Q40. The problem is well understood but not trivial
to fix in a way that preserves compatibility and is clean
enough to get accepted into mainstream. Actually, even
a quick and dirty fix is anything but easy.

Kernel 2.6 didnt boot last time I looked.. problem was probably
introduced around 2.5.99+, appears like an issue with the fragmented
Q40 memory map.  

rpm-4.2x works well with a patch ;)

glibc-2.3 works :)

plenty of updated user packages and libs

gcc issues:

 - libgcc_so in gcc3.3 is incompatible with previous versions
   due to a change (a real improvement actually ;) in m68k exception
   handling and version number wasnt bumped accordingly.. this makes
   system upgrades not practical for average user.

 - patches to improve 68060 performance available (longlong
   instructions are most affected)

 - ide-cd ICE problem may have been fixed in CVS according to
 http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12008
   but I didnt have a chance to test yet. For gcc-3.0 I use
   a dirty workaround that simply disables the failing sanity check

 - global register variables problem still survives every
   attempt to get fixed properly.
 http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=7871


Current showstopper on the way to an updated distribution
is coreutils - sha1sum produces wrong results and I need
to figure out whether it is gcc or coreutils bug before
proceeding.

On an obscure sidetrack of development, I have a functional
but slightly buggy native ocaml compiler for m68k
(http://www.ocaml.org/).. needed a fast and reliable RAD
language to update the dated, slow and insecure cgi scripts  
in the Q40 distribution.

Richard