Purpose

The purpose of this page is to demonstrate that ia64 meets the [http://release.debian.org/etch_arch_criteria.html architecture recertification criteria for etch].

If some of these requirements are irrelevant or implausible for the port, please add a waiver request indicating why and how this isn't a problem for the arch in bold.

Availability

The architecture needs to be available for everybody, i.e. it must be available without ["NDAs"] and it must be possible to buy machines on the market.

There will be some time while an architecture goes to end-of-life where it will not be easily buyable anymore at the market, but it is still useful for Debian's users if we continue support. This criterion doesn't mean it should be directly dropped, but there will be also a time where Debian and the port's porters can't really support the architecture anymore, and it reaches its natural end-of-life. (In other words, we are stricter with adding a new architecture, than at determing whether to keep an existing architecture.)

  1. [http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/index.html]*

  2. [http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/]*

Developer machines

The architecture must have a developer-available (i.e. debian.org) machine that contains the usual development chroots (at least stable, testing, unstable).

  1. merulo.debian.org - maintained by DSA (Matt Taggart and dann frazier local admins), connectivity via HP, porting machine.

  2. merkel.debian.org - maintained by DSA (Matt Taggart and dann frazier local admins), connectivity via HP, general use machine (no chroots).

Port maintainers

The Debian port is maintained by the following developers, who are familiar with arch-specific issues for this port

  1. dann frazier
  2. lamont jones
  3. al stone
  4. Khalid Aziz
  5. Kyle ?McMartin

Users

The architecture needs to prove that developers and users are actually using it. Five Developers need to certify in that they're activly developing on this architecture, and it needs to be demonstrated that at least 50 users are using the platform.

We are counting users for the second criteria, not machines; e.g., one s390-installation with 50,000 users fullfils the user criterion just fine.

[http://popcon.debian.org popcon data] is currently lacking; please apt-get install popularity-contest*

  1. We have a single ia64 machine in our lab at HP with well over 50 users. --dannf

  2. We have around 10 machines shared with around 30 developers -- ianw

  3. We have 10 machines shared between ~50 users (actually: There are 3129 student accounts which have access to those machines, but they are seldom uses -- Tolimar

  4. PING, the computer club at the University of Oslo, has an IA64 as its primary login server, with 86 accounts of whom ~20 use it regularly. -- ilmari

Installer

The architecture must have a working, tested installer.

The sarge installer works well; the daily builds are currently broken due to #326103

Upstream support

There is support by the porters and upstream. This is especially true for the toolchain and the kernel.

Upstream support is provided by:

Archive coverage and Autobuilder support

The architecture needs to have successfully compiled the current version of the overwhelming part of the archive, excluding architecture-specific packages.

Archive cleanliness

All binary packages need to be built from unmodified sources (i.e. from the source found in the ftp archive), and all binary packages need to be built by debian developers.

The port builds from unmodified Debian source.

Autobuilders

The architecture is able to keep up with unstable with not more than two buildds, has redundancy in the autobuilder network, keeps their autobuilders running for 24x7, has autobuilders acceptable for security support.

The following machines run buildds for the port:

  1. caballero.debian.org - connectivity via Black Cat Networks, buildd logs checked by LaMont Jones, admined by DSA (Jonathan ?McDowell is local admin)

Vetoes

The security team have noted the following problems in supporting the architecture:

The Debian admin team have noted the following problems in supporting the architecture:

The release team have noted the following problems in supporting the architecture: