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Hello |
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|
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I'm glad to announce that emerge system works for (almost)all packageson ppc. |
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>From these I have to substract the x86-specific packages. and iproute2, |
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that gives me some problems maybe because of -Werror only. |
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I have kept good record of the steps i took. |
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|
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Just to introduce myself, i'm 22 years old, a student in a French engeneering |
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school. Although I have been using a computer for some time now, and debian linux |
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for a little more than one year, i must say i'm no linux expert. |
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I have very little experience in development for instance, but i'm willing |
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and hopefully able to learn fast :) |
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|
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>From this comes two points : |
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1/ gentoo is extremely flexible. Port isnt hard, or i wouldn't have succeeded |
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in advancing so much. I never delved into portage, and barely edited some .ebuilds files. |
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I have gathered enough information so that i can write a gentoo-porting howto |
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from a working debian install, that can work as a base for an alpha port, |
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for instance, that should not be hard either. |
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Thank you for the great job of Gentoo in the first place ! |
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|
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2/ I am willing to do some modifications to portage to allow more cross-platform |
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flexibility. But, it obviously needs to be concerted. |
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So i'm gonna tell you boringly of the problems i encountered and some solutions |
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that i though of. |
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|
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Problems are |
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a) platform-specific patches (gcc, patch itself) |
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b) platform-specific options (for instance, a `use altivec` one for |
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powerpc processors) |
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b) platform-specific packages (bootloaders for instance) |
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|
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b) |
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I think portage needs a little tweaking i'm willing to do. |
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this would go thus (let's take the function src_uncompress as an exemple) |
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* look in the .ebuild for a platform-specific function to be executed |
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if it exists. |
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* if src_uncompress_ppc exists on my ppc machine, |
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then execute it regardless of the existence of src_uncompress |
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* if no such platform-specific function is found, then |
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fallback on scr_uncompress. |
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|
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This would allow a smooth transition : |
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--existing .ebuild files still work, and a default behaviour |
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is given to the platform-specific packagers |
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--you can still "factorize" platform-independent instructions |
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in the scr_uncompress function, and call it in the platform-specific |
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function |
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--ppc/alpha developers can safely work on their specific part |
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without endangering the x86 part |
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|
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It would be nice, too, if some ${ARCH} variable computed by portage |
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was available to the .ebuild writer. |
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|
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a) |
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The problem is that you don't necessarily want the x86 user to download |
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a ppc-spceific patch. |
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then you could define a SCR_URI_X86 SRC_URI_PPC additional to the already |
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existant SRC_URI if the ${ARCH} is matched. Better hide it in portage |
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than in a ugly if statement in the .ebuild file, i think (once again, |
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code factorization) |
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|
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c) |
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I should think that platform-dependent utilities are not so much needed. |
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well, apart from x86 assembly compiler and bootloaders, that is :) |
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the answer, generally speaking, is virtual packages, if all platform can |
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provide their version of one tool. (ybin as bootloader for instance) |
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this is certainly the most difficult part, and i haven't given it much |
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though. |
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|
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One more personal remark, not to bother you with my life, but : |
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i'm still a student, and do not have a hell of time :( |
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that'll be worse even after i suppose anyways. |
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Things i want to do |
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*solve the platform-specific-packages design problem |
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*write a gentoo-bootstrap-from-debian howto to help support other architectures (alpha ?) |
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*package ybin ? not really necessary, since most will dual-boot or |
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work chrooted |
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*hack portage. i'm learing python (not so tough :) and will look into |
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portage. but to implement, things need to be settled. |
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|
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I'm done. I didn't know how to introduce myself, if i may sound awkward or |
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anything, please do not heed. |
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(My mastering of the English language is not good, either). |
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|
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Thank you for your time, Jean-Baptiste Note. |
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|
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-- |
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I'm an occurence of the I love GNU virus. |
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Please help me spread. |