On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:20:04AM +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:

On 05/21/2010 09:05 AM, James A. Peltier wrote:

...

I'm currently using scripts as provided by

http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General/RebuildReleaseProcess

Just want to point out that CentOS does not use anything from that page

• and details / scripts on that page have nothing to do with the CentOS

process.

Can you please point me at where any scripts _do_ live? Or a description of the process followed for bootstrapping and building x86? I can get all this build and bootstrap stuff done myself for PowerPC if I have to, but it seems a lot better to use the general process and ideas followed on x86. If it isn't doc'd anywhere, if you're able to have a chat and provide me what you have, I'll even volunteer to write it up.

Thanks, Greg

...

in my first attempt to create a CentOS 5.5 IA64 port. Learning much as I go along.

There is an ia64 port already in place, which got about zero level of interest, so I abandoned it.

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Hi Karanbir,

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 01:34:19PM +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:

Hi Greg,

On 05/21/2010 03:55 PM, Greg Snyder wrote:

...

Can you please point me at where any scripts _do_ live? Or a

Thanks for the overview. I appreciate it.

we use a hacked up verion of plage ( hacked up not in terms of functionality, but in terms of how it works to make it work for the environment we are using at the moment ). There is no bootstrap for i386 / x86_64 since those tree's build independently anyway. Much like ia64 and s390x. Ppc is interesting in this regard, its not really ppc, its the ppc64 with some userland in ppc only code being churned out from a dual target capable gcc. I highly recommend not messing around with any buildsystem like plague or koji or anything such till such time as the bootroots can be done using a scripted process.

Sure, I don't need to try to automate what I can't yet do. :)

So what we need to do is workout what it is that you want to be working on. Based on your comments so far, and those from others - I dont think there is any sort of conversation or through that has gone into this.

Yes, that's right. I'm most interested in the userland side. I'd like to get a set of RPMs built that (initially) target something pretty generic (-mcpu=common kind of thing) that can be used on a variety of systems. There's also the interesting and unfortunate question of soft vs hard floating point, as I'm eventually hoping to run the result of this on some non-fp systems.

I'd like to help with getting a suitable buildchain/buildroot setup for this. As for conversation, just let me know, and I'll be there. I don't yet have any strong ideas about how to get this done, and I'm happy to talk.

Ideally, we would like to have a ppc64 clean buildroot + a ppc clean buildroot, sharing the dual target capable gcc ( which would need an infected ppc64 buildoot itself to build! ). And we would need a couple of kernel build chains targeting the scenarios that most people are often confused by :

• Target ibm power4+
• Target Mac ppc64
• Target Mac <= G4
• Target legacy IBM power kit

We would then need to formulate the actual build plan.

Work that Tim Verhoeven and Fabian Arrotin have been doing, and things that I've done in the past have been aimed at creating these build chains. The actual decision on where the deliverable distro will target, is sort of open still. I know that many of us would like to see Mac hardware targeted, but we also want to get something usable, and binary compatible with upstream so as to meet the CentOS mandate.

Where have you, Tim and Fabian got up to with the build chain and any associated buildroot(s)? Can you point me at what you have so far? I'd like to start helping out, and have some time during the next few weeks.

Yes, I'd like to see the Mac targeted as well. From what you're saying though, power4 would be the only strict requirement.

For the sake of clarity - I take a buildroot to mean just that, a build root - either setup and managed manually or using tools like mock. And a buildchain to mean the process that would use one or more such buildroots to arrive at he desired result. And yes, in many cases its a one to one mapping. On platforms like i386 / x86_64 / ia64, its an exclusive one to one mapping.But hey, ppc is interesting right ?

Okay, thanks.

If it makes sense to have a chat about all this, please let me know.

Thanks, Greg

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:24:45AM +0200, Timo Schoeler wrote:

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thus Greg Snyder spake:

...

Hi all,

Hi Greg,

...

I'm trying to get a CentOS 5 port started for PowerPC. I saw there was some email back in February about this, but did not know what progress had been made. Does anyone have any news?

I think that was my mail... Well, could be, at least. I started to think of it in December, but didn't make any progress (except adding another IBM Power 285 machine to the already existing Power 275 I get, see http://wiki.centos.org/TimoSchoeler).

...

I'm most interested in 32-bit, with the hope of eventually running it on some Apple (G4 and G5) desktops, as well as on some embedded PowerPC boards (mostly amcc 460ex based). So I'd be hoping to build with some pretty generic target options so the RPMs would be useful in the most places.

For me it would be the 64bit stuff. I do have a G4 machine at home, but it isn't set up ATM. Also, I'd really like to have it running on IBM Power... especially as there *exists* an official upstream port.

Sure, that makes sense. In terms of the build tools and process, I'm sure there'd be a lot of overlap anyway.

...

Are there tools, scripts or techniques used to do the x86 RPMs build that could be leveraged? I looked around on the CentOS website and wiki, but could not find docs or sources for this. Any pointers on this, or just generally how the x86 build/build server is bootstrapped, and the x86 RPMs are produced, would be greatly appreciated.

Same problem here; I asked in IRC yesterday, but noone of the PowerPC guys was there, as it seemed (if there are any, that is).

Bummer, from your email I had hoped you might be the holder of the super-secret PowerPC stuff. :) I wonder who if anyone is then?

...

Given my previous somewhat painful experience with autoconf-related cross-build issues, my first thought was to build the bulk of the RPMs natively on PowerPC, rather than x86 to PowerPC cross-build. I have a few PowerPC boxes (currently running Fedora 12), including a quad core 2.5GHz G5, that I'd be happy to share with others interested in getting a CentOS PowerPC port done.

I'm very interested in this. However, even more interesting (and very port-specific) would be the stuff surrounding the topic 'how to create bootable media'...

I've been playing around with a manually constructed chroot'd environment on top of Fedora PowerPC. My thought is to initially try using existing PowerPC kernel (and initrd / fdt), and to get it working with as much of a CentOS-based userland as I can. This approach can't be followed for everything or forever, but it will at least let me make some progress, and hopefully it'd be progress that could be used independent of the other lower-level work.

Another idea would be to create a wiki page for gathering information on getting up and running the PPC port. (I'll ask Ralph to create one. :)

Sounds good, please let me know.

Thanks, Greg

...

I'd be grateful for any tips, help or direction.

Thanks, Greg

Cheers,

Timo -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

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On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:30:18AM +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:

On 05/21/2010 07:57 AM, Greg Snyder wrote:

...

Given my previous somewhat painful experience with autoconf-related cross-build issues, my first thought was to build the bulk of the RPMs natively on PowerPC, rather than x86 to PowerPC cross-build. I have a few PowerPC boxes (currently running Fedora 12), including a quad core 2.5GHz G5, that I'd be happy to share with others interested in getting a CentOS PowerPC port done.

Tim and Fabian have been doing some work on the ppc build at the moment, I've done some in the past. There is an irc channel #centos-ppc that we use to keep in sync. And *most* of the hardwork required to bootstrap the builds has already been done ( creating the bootstrap roots etc )

That's good news. How can I see / get started with what you guys have so far?

One thing you might want to keep in mind is that the RHEL ppc project *only* targets IBM power4+ kit. Which does not include anything that apple ever made, and it certainly does not include any non 64bit powerpc capable stack.

Thanks for the heads up.

So welcome to the party, bring your kernel and glibc porting skills along. And be ready to backport upstream patches for various things as they only patch ppc64 relevant code ( which, admittedly isnt that much to start with - but it does include the kernel and a dep tree down from there ).

Thanks, sure, I'm ready for some hard work, and have done this type of work on other platforms before.

The situation has gotten a bit more intense with the direction they are taking in RHEL6.

Tim, Fabian - perhaps an irc syncup is called for ?

I'd love to be involved, or even just hear more detail about where things are at.

-- Greg

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