Re: Plan needed for switching m68k to 32-bit alignment

[Finn Thain <fthain@linux-m68k.org>]

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, Michael Schmitz wrote:

> On 25/10/24 22:55, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> 
> > I also expect that a lot of users (of m68k kernels) are never going to 
> > get the benefits as they are already stuck on older userspace because 
> > of added bloat in new software releases. I assume you have better 
> > understanding than me of what m68k hardware is commonly used these 
> > days, and how constrained that is in practice.
> 
> I second that - currently bisecting to find out what makes my extremely 
> RAM constrained m68k system fail to boot or run anything past 6.9-rc4 
> (sysvinit, not systemd).
> 

As cloud instances multiply, that small quantity of lost RAM gets 
multiplied. So it appears that small systems aren't so strange, even after 
they become unprofitable...

> Much as I appreciate Adrian's efforts to keep up with user space 
> development, I won't be in a position to help with an ABI change.
> 

Bloated m68k packages will continue to work -- given emulators that run 
faster with every hardware upgrade. But how would such a distro add value?

I don't mind if Gentoo ships a separate profile for (downstream) ABI 
experimentation, leaving the default m68k profile on the standard ABI.

And if Debian wants to switch ABI entirely, I won't object further, I've 
said enough about the associated risks.

So I'll just reiterate that I'd rather see more collaboration instead -

1) among all small systems ports, to try to alleviate Debian's package 
   dependency problem

2) among all developers working on non-commercial architectures, to 
   improve the GCC Rust frontend

3) among all 680x0 developers interested in the NetBSD ABI

4) among all users of EOL'd hardware, so that value may continue to be 
   extracted from it (thanks to the efforts of Debian and Gentoo devs, 
   among others).