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Revision 9 as of 2012-01-17 09:29:16
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  Check [[http://buildd.debian-ports.org/stats/|stats]].   Check [[http://buildd.debian.org/stats/|stats]].

/!\ Work-In-Progress

armhf: archive qualification page

Contents

  1. armhf: archive qualification page
    1. Questions for new architectures
      1. Are machines available to buy for the general public?
      2. Is full source available?
      3. Is this architecture related to other architectures already in the archive, or that also should be considered, either now or in the future? Can the related architectures be supported in a single architecture (eg, with a biarch arrangement)?
      4. Are there 3 or more developers (or NMs) actively maintaining the port? Who are they?
      5. What sort of architecture is this? Desktop/workstation? Mainframe/supercomputer? Embedded? Something else?
      6. Does it have any users? If a desktop system, are there Debian admins who run Debian systems on the arch? If an embedded system are there real systems shipping that a Debian port will be useful for? If a mainframe system are there real systems with many users that a Debian port will be useful for? Who are they?
      7. Is there kernel and toolchain support? At what level? Are the latest versions supported, or are legacy releases required for compatability with some hardware?
      8. Has the ABI stabilised, or are there major ABI changes coming up? Is the ABI stable enough to ensure users will be able just "apt-get dist-upgrade" from one version to the next?
      9. How do you install a system? (URL to a HOWTO)
      10. Has a buildd been setup? How much of the archive has been built (count by source package, builds of old versions are fine for this case)?
      11. What hardware is potentially available as a fast buildd?
      12. Is there an example box developers can login to to see if it works?
      13. It's also worth considering whether the port has any special requirements. If the port is mainly for embedded systems, it may be appropriate to have different installation or release arrangements compared to normal desktop/workstation architectures.
    2. Further questions for OSes
      1. Are there existing comprehensive free distributions of this OS? If so, why is a Debian distribution useful?
      2. What demonstrable benefits does this OS have over existing Debian OSes?
      3. Does this system have a standard Unix API?
      4. Does the OS support modern glibc and gcc?
      5. What is the license on the kernel and core libraries? Is the license free? Is the license GPL compatible? (Note that if it's not free, distributing the software violates the Social Contract; and if it's not GPL compatible, GPL software such as dpkg can't be linked to it)
      6. Does the OS build largely without source changes? If so, what proportion of the archive has built?

Questions for new architectures

Are machines available to buy for the general public?

Is full source available?

  • Yes. U-Boot bootloader and Linux kernel work is being merged into mainline tree.

Biarch would technically be possible, but:

  • wouldn't be a scalable approach as any library using floats in function calls would need a biarch version, and reverse build-deps would need to build against the two versions -- not scalable
  • would require changes only in GCC 4.7 to deal with -mfloat-abi/-msoft-float in spec files
  • would require two distinct runtime linkers (ld-linux); currently the same ld-linux name is used for both ABIs; it would however be possible to rely on the multiarch runtimer linker pathnames to distinguish

Are there 3 or more developers (or NMs) actively maintaining the port? Who are they?

What sort of architecture is this? Desktop/workstation? Mainframe/supercomputer? Embedded? Something else?

  • This is a dual embedded-desktop architecture targeting mobile devices with network connectivity, as netbooks, nettops, smartbooks, smartphones, inkreaders, ..

Does it have any users? If a desktop system, are there Debian admins who run Debian systems on the arch? If an embedded system are there real systems shipping that a Debian port will be useful for? If a mainframe system are there real systems with many users that a Debian port will be useful for? Who are they?

  • Yes, it has users. (TBC)

Is there kernel and toolchain support? At what level? Are the latest versions supported, or are legacy releases required for compatability with some hardware?

  • Many OMAP devices are already very well supported in Linux mainline. Efika mainline support is being worked on (we expect 2.6.39 at least have bare support for Efika devices).

Has the ABI stabilised, or are there major ABI changes coming up? Is the ABI stable enough to ensure users will be able just "apt-get dist-upgrade" from one version to the next?

  • Yes.

How do you install a system? (URL to a HOWTO)

  • Using Debian Installer (currently this is work in progress). A cross installer could be used as well (not yet exists, only a manual way).

Has a buildd been setup? How much of the archive has been built (count by source package, builds of old versions are fine for this case)?

  • Yes. Debian-ports.org infrastructure has been used. Check stats.

What hardware is potentially available as a fast buildd?

  • i.MX51 EfikaMX based cluster has been successfully deployed until now. i.MX53 boards are getting to production and will offer SATA (MX53LOCO / Quickstart).

    OMAP4 ?PandaBoards are dual core 1 GHz with 1 GiB of RAM and offer decent performance (used in Ubuntu) but no SATA. ARM Versatile Express boards would also qualify, but are prohibitively expensive.

Is there an example box developers can login to to see if it works?

  • Not yet, but it is in the TODO list.

It's also worth considering whether the port has any special requirements. If the port is mainly for embedded systems, it may be appropriate to have different installation or release arrangements compared to normal desktop/workstation architectures.

  • Maybe.

Further questions for OSes

Are there existing comprehensive free distributions of this OS? If so, why is a Debian distribution useful?

  • No, there are not existing free distributions, while we have agreed that Linaro, Ubuntu, ?MeeGo and Gentoo will be distributing hard-float ARM ('armhf') OSes in parallel effort with Debian.

What demonstrable benefits does this OS have over existing Debian OSes?

  • It is able to properly run floating point operations, noticing much more than 40% improvement when compared to Debian ARM EABI port ('armel') on some benchmarks. (TBC, attach tests)

Does this system have a standard Unix API?

  • Yes.

Does the OS support modern glibc and gcc?

  • Yes. GCC (>= 4.5) and EGLIBC.

What is the license on the kernel and core libraries? Is the license free? Is the license GPL compatible? (Note that if it's not free, distributing the software violates the Social Contract; and if it's not GPL compatible, GPL software such as dpkg can't be linked to it)

  • Core libraries (except 3D graphics engines) come from GNU Software, so it entitles GPL license.

Does the OS build largely without source changes? If so, what proportion of the archive has built?