On Sun Jan 26, 2003 at 12:42:49AM +0100, Stefan van der Eijk wrote: > >> > with the way mdk is currently working they won't be able to handle > >> it. > >> > >> Who said we were going to? I suppose ia64 and x64 are likely, > With the way things are going now, I doubt that mdk has the manpower to > maintain anything more than i586 at the moment.
I think you've got it pretty much on the nose, so I don't see why this
conversation is taking place, unless we're looking longterm future.
We've got PPC and x86 in the works for 9.1... I sincerely doubt
anything else will come of that. 9.2? Who knows. I would suspect
some 64bit port, whether x86-64 or ia64, I suppose remains to be seen.
> >> but alpha and sparc? Those I sincerely doubt.
> That's why it was typed between "(" ")" and a question mark was added.
> With a little fantasy I could add a list of other archs that could be
> done, but mdk had already brought out alpha and sparc port before. Alpha
> is still being maintained a bit by me --> just to prove that it _can_ be
> done --> one you have a kernel, c library, and the compiler for an arch
> you can (re-)build the distro on it, automated.
Well sure. I'm not saying it's a difficult thing to do, but you're
implying official Mandrake development here. Alpha and sparc have
typically been community-driven.. we've never had an official alpha
port (IIRC), and sparc was last done for 7.0. Asking Mandrake to
officially support more archs is one thing... nevermind the actual
development cost, what about support life? If we committed to putting
out 9.2 on x86, PPC, ia64, x86-64, sparc, and alpha, that's 5 ports
(with x86 as "main") to develop... and 5 ports to maintain for the life
of the product.
That's a *lot*. And expensive. And for what gain? I could see it for
a "Mandrake Server" OS, but we're typically used as a
desktop/workstation OS. To absorb the costs of alpha/sparc/*64, which
won't be used by many for the desktop, is cost prohibitive.
Now, that isn't to say something can't be done to make a
community-driven port, completely unofficial and 100% community-driven.
Any patches to software that need to be included to accomodate another
arch can be folded into the x86 "main" tree so that in the end the
distrib is more portable than what we would want. But I think asking
Mandrake to do this officially is ludicrous.
> Point is, if you want to support more than one port, in a serious way,
> then you need to start doing things differently. I think they need to
> further automate the build process, bring in more regression testing of
> the packages, etc. Forget uploading binaries. Only upload the src.rpm's
> and let the backend build the binaries (on multiple platforms).
I understand your point. But you make the assumption that we "want to
support more than one port, in a serious way". I don't recall anyone
saying that this was the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I really
don't believe anyone has ever said that Mandrake was officially
interested in doing this.
Again, I think it's a good idea, don't get me wrong. I think this
could work very well if it is community driven. There just aren't the
resources to do this officially and internally. Surely you must see
that.
> FYI: HP just brought out new alpha machines this week... EV7 based CPU's,
> blows ia64 out of the water --> nothing new in that respect. HP is trying
> to downplay & keep quite the performance numbers of the alpha in favour of
> ia64.
>
> It's true that alpha and sparc are used as workstation and servers, not as
> consumer desktops.
Right. Do you have some comparison numbers? Ie. compare the typical
x86 machine to an entry-level ia64 or x86-64. Then compare that to a
similar Alpha or Sparc machine.
The cost of those machines is prohibitive as well... people who can
afford it are not using them for desktops or workstations, unless
they're in the movie business. =) Most people will be using PPC or
x86 for their desktop. Those are the two archs that should be focused
on. At least both those archs are not cost-prohibitive to use as
desktop machines.
--
MandrakeSoft Security; http://www.mandrakesecure.net/
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