[armedslack] EABI ?

[Alan Hourihane]

On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 13:08 +0100, Stuart Winter wrote:
> > I don't know what the reasons are to completely abandon the old ABI but
> > isn't it possible to make these older ARM versions functional with the
> > new EABI?
> 
> From the reading I have done of the Debian EABI port, I am lead to
> believe that the answer is no.  Debian are supporting ARMv4 -- but I'm
> not sure whether that's because they're dropping armv3 support anyway for
> their little endian old ABI port, or not.  I've asked on #debian-arm on
> irc and I'll see what response I get.
> 
> > That would extend the useful life of the hardware enormously. I don't
> > like throwing away working hardware, I still have some i486 and Pentiums
> > lying around, and neither should you.
> 
> Heh.  Well, The RiscPC isn't exactly the height of excellence in
> the range of hardware -- I think it's just that I spent so much
> money on it when I bought it, that subconciously I'm protecting
> my investment ;-)
> 
> I'm barely using the RiscPC now apart from to test the installer every
> now and then once I've done enough package updates -- everthing
> happens inside QEMU.
> 
> 
> > It's really a shame the patch for 2.4 was never integrated into the
> > kernel proper and/or updated for 2.6. That would have alleviated the
> > process a lot and you could be running the newer Slackware releases on
> > your Iyonix. Now for the time being you could just install those in
> > chroots and build software that way.
> 
> I cannot chroot into it though because we need a 2.6 Kernel with the
> glibc in armedslack-current.  The Iyonix is reduced to a build host
> for -noarch packages and a few other native-only distribution building
> scripts which I didn't get around to modifying to run on another host
> yet;other than that I may as well turn it off! :-(
> 
> > I initially built Slackware MIPS that way from the installed Debian
> > system, just until the point that it could become self-hosting after six
> > days of building and rebuilding using LFS as a guideline.
> 
> That's one way of doing it -- good old Debian :-)
> Ah yeah.  Thinking about the EABI port I started wondering how I actually
> managed to get the original armedslack bootstrapped.  I think scratchbox
> helped a lot since it had a number of tools and libraries already
> available.  It's amazing how much stuff, even just during the build
> process, relies on things you'd not realise - like perl, ruby and so on.
> 
> > I have been looking into your 2.4.27 kernel diff but it's huge and it's
> > really time-consuming to try to make sense of it and split it up into
> > smaller pieces that I could understand, not that I'm in the least
> > knowledgeable about kernel matters anyway :-).
> 
> Yeah - Jim had a look at it at one point too and came to the conclusion
> that most of it was Debian junk.  Why the hell Peter ported it against
> a Debian kernel, I don't know.  I spoke to Wookey (one of the Debian
> devels) and he said he thinks there would not be a lot to do for the
> Iyonix with the latest 2.6 kernels.  But I'm not even a C programmer so
> there is no point in me looking at it -- it'd be like going to those
> modern art exhibitions where someone's parcel taped a load of lego men
> to some egg boxes and poured moulten nutella over them.  I'm like "Well it
> looks interesting but I'm not really sure what they're trying to do
> there".
> 
> Jim also said that you'd definitley need one of the Iyonixes to port it
> with.  When Peter was doing the intial port he was always using the
> serial console since the graphics driver wasn't working.
> Castle may lend or give someone a machine if they could port it-- maybe --
> I have never asked.
> 
> > I could do the same for ARM but where is the cheap ARM hardware that
> > should be abounding now that the Windows and the x86 hardware that can
> > run it is becoming less and less valuable and relevant?
> 
> I know what you mean but most of the ARM boards/devices are embedded stuff
> with limited RAM and storage which isn't good for compiling anything... or
> they cost a small fortune.
> 
> > It's really time for an Acorn Risc Machines renaissance and seeing what
> > Lemote have done with their miniature Fu Long computer I am really
> > interested in an ARM equivalent as well.
> 
> :-)
> 
> I've decided that what I'll do is release armedslack-12.0 (Slackware 12)
> and get it working properly, rather than continually chasing -current.
> And once 12.0's working properly, I'll move to making -current with
> EABI- even if it means that the RiscPC cannot be used anymore.

Ugh. That's unfortunate if it can't. I'll need to switch to another
distro with old ABI support. Here's hoping it can.

Alan.