[gentoo-dev] PowerPC Resources at OSU

[R0b0t1]

Hello,

(This will be almost a duplicate on the PPC list, but now having more
information I am sending it to the BSD list as well.)

I apologize in advance if I did anything improper. I misunderstood
desultory when I asked him what to do earlier. Originally I was
unwilling to try to associate myself with Gentoo for the purpose of
this request but I wasn't referred to anyone who could fill out the
form "for" me.

Having requested OpenPOWER hosting from OSUOSL on Gentoo's behalf, I
was informed that hosting is already provided to the project.
Consequently I have two questions:

1) May I have access to a/the POWER server, or some other suitable
POWER resource? If not,
2) is anyone available to verify that I am associated with the project
or that I will use the resources for project related work?


For any comment to OSU, such as to request closure of the ticket or
that they go ahead with allocating the VM, please comment and I will
forward the support ticket to you.


My intent is to experiment with the PowerPC architecture, specifically
features found on newer POWER processors and servers. It is unlikely I
will ever get to do this on my own as the machines run $10k-$30k. I
requested services from OSU because GCC was not able to accommodate my
request for hypervisor access on their system.

However, having finally found the resources I've been looking for this
whole time, it looks like OSU's nodes are virtualized and won't be
able to do exactly what I want anyway (i.e. the GCC sysadmin was
misinformed), so I may have accidentally wasted people's time and
potentially tarnished Gentoo's reputation. I will make amends as best
I can.

IBM is willing to fund a node for my use and OSU is willing to deploy
it pending contact from Gentoo leadership. If there is a machine that
already exists that I would not disrupt, I would have no problems
working on existing resources instead if that seems reasonable. The
GCC server(s) are probably adequate, however I am having lots of
problems setting up a prefix on those systems because they use CentOS.
I am trying to fix bugs as best as I am able but it is starting to
look hopeless.

Excess resources on the donated OSU OpenPOWER machine could be offered
to other developers or used to run a Tinderbox. It may be a good idea
to do those things on the already existing machine(s).

Respectfully,
     R0b0t1