[Mageia-dev] cleaning old architecutres in glibc and elsewhere

Thu Feb 24 17:33:25 CET 2011

Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> writes:
+
+> Hi,
+
+Hi,
+
+>
+> while trying to fix some missing packages ( the locales-* ), I have
+> found myself looking at gibc packages.
+>
+> We still have support for various arch :
+> - alpha
+
+this arch is broken for quite some time. afaik alpha support is done
+through glibc-ports and our spec doesn't handle that atm (yet, as arm &
+mips need glibc-ports). If we ignore this, the rest of the support for
+alpha is not a big part of the glibc spec. Grepping for alpha in the
+patches didn't returned a lot of answer too.
+
+> - sparc*
+
+no idea about sparc support.
+
+> - ppc
+
+I guess that last time ppc support was tested was when some people
+were testing cell ppc systems. It probably needs more care to work
+nowadays. I'm seeing some ppc32 support in glibc-ports but I've no idea
+if it's really needed (eg ppc64 may not need that).
+
+>
+> Since alpha is dead ( last proc, 2003 ), I think we can all agree that
+> we can clean this. 
+>
+> Now, for sparc and ppc, is there someone here who is willing to work on
+> a port ? If not, I will clean the support ( mainly removing %ifdef and
+> stuff like that ) from glibc.spec in 2 weeks. 
+
+It's a matter of weighing the cost of keeping them. If the cost is high
+and there's no one stepping up to maintain sparc or ppc, it's better to
+remove them. It can be added back later if someone jumps in.
+If there's no cost, it's more a subjective question and the people who
+are best entitled to answer to this question are the people who will
+maintain the glibc.
+
+fwiw, I hope I'll be able to merge at least the arm bits needed for
+support in the glibc within theses 2 weeks but if I don't manage to do
+it, please ping me on irc when you'll do the cleaning in order to make
+sure it won't make merging my work more difficult :)
+
+Arnaud
+