[csw-users] Warning: new php packages breaks low-end sparcs

[James Lee]

On 22/03/06, 22:41:12, Dennis Clarke <blastwave at gmail.com> wrote regarding
Re: [csw-users] Warning: new php packages breaks low-end sparcs:

> On 3/22/06, Matthew Hannigan <mlh at zip.com.au> wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 10:46:55AM -0500, Dennis Clarke wrote:
> > > Should I toss it into the rack and give everyone a login?  For testing I
> > > mean ?
> >
> > Speaking for myself, that would be useful.
> > I occasioanlly like to compile programs on an old os/arch
> > combo to produce a binary that works anywhere.

> Well, I would need some time.  Setting up a fresh server on a Sparc 20
> will be a slow process.

> Also .. I think Sun ONE Studio 8 is the last rev to be supported and I
> don't even know if the recent patches address sun4m or not.

There should be no need.  One can test for v8 compliance and build v8
binaries on > v8 machines - as we do when people use the correct flags.

There are some subtleties about strict v8 compliance, some of which I
have ignored for pass-off testing, eg, Java 1.5 requires UltraSparc
so any Java program needs to be <= v1.4.  We also have packages
(waiting for fix) that call for 64 bit SUNW packages despite not needing
them - this isn't even an arch problem, someone might chose to run
an UltraSparc in 32bit mode and not installed the redundant packages.


More important that arch for "works anywhere" is to use a base OS (the
Blastwave build machines use Solaris 8), then the newer Solaris 9/10
libraries won't be linked to the binaries.


A finally note on v8 compliance: the penalty for choosing the base
arch is small (disappointingly so, the newer processors don't provide
the performance gains of simply cranking up the clock), and where
performance does matter the isaexec mechanisms can and are used.




James.