current status of alpha in squeeze

[Steve Langasek]

Hi Arthur,

At DebConf, the release team has discussed the state of the various Debian
ports and their viability for squeeze, and a number of concerns were
expressed about alpha.

I've added a couple more serious issues to the list on
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-alpha@...>
which will need attention in order for alpha to release with squeeze, and
I'm also told that upstream support for alpha has continued to atrophy -
including poor kernel+glibc support, because there is no one taking care of
the implementations of new syscalls for the kernel.

Buildd statistics at https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-quarter-big.png
and https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph2-quarter-big.png are also heading
the wrong way, and a recent thread on debian-alpha shows that eglibc 2.10
currently fails its testsuite.

Furthermore, I'm told that some Debian folks have been trying to contact you
about other matters, but that you may have been unresponsive due to real
life committments.

Do you still intend to carry the alpha port on your own?  At this point, it
doesn't look like it will be releasable with squeeze.  The release team
assessment is that there need to be signs that this is changing over the
next month, or else alpha should be dropped from the release planning.
Could you please let us know whether you will have time to work on this?

Awaiting your reply,
--
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@...                                     vorlon@...


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alpha-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Arthur Loiret-4]

Hi Steve,

Sorry for the long time to answer, I'm just back from six weeks
without a real Internet connection. Unfortunately, I'm going to have
limited time to dedicate to Debian for the next months. I should still
be able to sign build logs, do manual rebuilds for FTBFS, and fix some
of them when it's not too tricky. But I won't have time to work on d-i
or the kernel.

On the upstream side, some of the porters seem to be still responsive
(see eglibc 2.10 testsuite regression, for example), and the alpha gcc
port has been adopted, or at least someone takes care of it. ;-)

To be short, I still intend to help for the alpha port, but I don't
think it will be enough for an official release. It would be great if
some other interested people had time to dedicate to the port.

Arthur.


2009/7/30, Steve Langasek <vorlon@...>:

> Hi Arthur,
>
> At DebConf, the release team has discussed the state of the various Debian
> ports and their viability for squeeze, and a number of concerns were
> expressed about alpha.
>
> I've added a couple more serious issues to the list on
> <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-alpha@...>
> which will need attention in order for alpha to release with squeeze, and
> I'm also told that upstream support for alpha has continued to atrophy -
> including poor kernel+glibc support, because there is no one taking care of
> the implementations of new syscalls for the kernel.
>
> Buildd statistics at https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-quarter-big.png
> and https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph2-quarter-big.png are also heading
> the wrong way, and a recent thread on debian-alpha shows that eglibc 2.10
> currently fails its testsuite.
>
> Furthermore, I'm told that some Debian folks have been trying to contact you
> about other matters, but that you may have been unresponsive due to real
> life committments.
>
> Do you still intend to carry the alpha port on your own?  At this point, it
> doesn't look like it will be releasable with squeeze.  The release team
> assessment is that there need to be signs that this is changing over the
> next month, or else alpha should be dropped from the release planning.
> Could you please let us know whether you will have time to work on this?
>
> Awaiting your reply,
> --
> Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
> Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
> Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
> slangasek@...                                     vorlon@...
>

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alpha-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Andreas Barth]

* Arthur Loiret (aloiret@...) [090816 00:06]:
> To be short, I still intend to help for the alpha port, but I don't
> think it will be enough for an official release. It would be great if
> some other interested people had time to dedicate to the port.

Unfortunatly we have to agree with this statement. We had to make an
decision. Based on the results of the overall feedback, we decided to
demote alpha as an release architecture.

This means, we will in about 14 days time start to remove the packages
from testing. Alpha will be completly ignored for any purposes of
testing migration as of now, and bugs specific to alpha are no longer
release critical grade.


Cheers,
Andi


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alpha-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Karl Goetz-4]

On Wed, 7 Oct 2009 17:21:17 +0200
Andreas Barth <aba@...> wrote:

Forgive my ignorance, but I've got a question.

> * Arthur Loiret (aloiret@...) [090816 00:06]:
> > To be short, I still intend to help for the alpha port, but I don't
> > think it will be enough for an official release. It would be great
> > if some other interested people had time to dedicate to the port.
>
> Unfortunatly we have to agree with this statement. We had to make an
> decision. Based on the results of the overall feedback, we decided to
> demote alpha as an release architecture.

Shame, but entirely understandable.

> This means, we will in about 14 days time start to remove the packages
> from testing. Alpha will be completly ignored for any purposes of
> testing migration as of now, and bugs specific to alpha are no longer
> release critical grade.

Does this mean alpha remains in Sid, or will it be removed from
all distributions != stable?
kk

> Cheers,
> Andi
>
>


--
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group

[Bob Tracy]

On Thu, Oct 08, 2009 at 09:57:38PM +1030, Karl Goetz wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Oct 2009 17:21:17 +0200
> Andreas Barth <aba@...> wrote:
> > * Arthur Loiret (aloiret@...) [090816 00:06]:
> > > To be short, I still intend to help for the alpha port, but I don't
> > > think it will be enough for an official release. It would be great
> > > if some other interested people had time to dedicate to the port.
> >
> > Unfortunatly we have to agree with this statement. We had to make an
> > decision. Based on the results of the overall feedback, we decided to
> > demote alpha as an release architecture.
>
> Does this mean alpha remains in Sid, or will it be removed from
> all distributions != stable?

Looks like the "purge" has already begun...  The package lists for
"testing" on Alpha are no longer available :-(.  If "testing" is the
only thing that's disappearing, I can live with continued availability
of "unstable" and "experimental" packages.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Tracy          |  "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit
rct@...       |   upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin
                   |   slitting throats." -- H.L. Mencken
------------------------------------------------------------------------


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-alpha-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...