Sparc64 support

Dieter BSD dieterbsd at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 07:02:06 UTC 2015


Jordan:
>take this opportunity to clean things up with the build process

Tim:
> If someone would chime in on this thread with the actual [deleted]
> make [deleted] incantations that should work for each architecture,
> you might find some volunteers.

I keep seeing the same issues over and over.  Cross builds don't
work.  Some people hate gcc for whatever reason and insist on
ripping it out in hopes that someone will wave their magic wand and
make some other compiler take over.  Sort of like injuring a bunch
of people in hopes that someone will improve emergency rooms.
Oh, if only we could add this special feature in base then we
could use it in lots of ports without having another dependency.

NASA_BSD got the cross-arch cross-OS building stuff working
*years* ago.  Is there some valid reason that FreeBSD can't
do it the same way?  NIH is not a valid reason.

There seems to be an assumption that all arches have to use the same toolchain.
That's just silly.  Build arches A & B with gcc, arches C & D with klang,
arch E with pcc, arch F with Sally-Jo's code-cruncher, and so one.
And go a step further.  The 'base' compiler can be different for
different arches.  Probably easier if the toolchain is separate
from the 'base' package. (like NASA_BSD did it)

Lots of ports have *way* too many dependencies.  Adding yet another
is bad, but probably isn't going to kill us.  Adding a bunch of garbage
to base is worse.

I see a lot of hatred towards the less popular, "weird" arches.
Having a variety of arches has a *lot* of value.

Jordan:
> I have a lab (several actually).  I have engineers.  How can we help.

In addition to the suggestions above, there are open PRs that need
fixing.


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