Re: kbuild 2.5 is ready for inclusion in the 2.5 kernel - take 3

James Bottomley
2002-05-17T14:56:30Z

> Along the same lines, we have James Bottomly attempting to get
> support for the NCR Voyager architecture added to the kernel. His
> original submission post was sent 2001-12-23: http://
> marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=100913508007485&w=2 The latest
> submission attempt was sent 2002-05-11: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/
> ?l=linux-kernel&m=102115570805131&w=2

> It seems to me that adding a new architecture probably doesn't impact
> the rest of the kernel much, so I am not sure way acceptance would be
> so long delayed. I have noticed that there has been minimal feedback
> to James, which he appears to have responded to quickly and well. I
> tend to think that any tweaks needed could be accomplished as easily
> once the code has been accepted into the kernel tree.

> Is there some justification for the delay that I have somehow
> overlooked?

Actually, the major criticism was that a new architecture can't be wedged into
the arch/i386 directory without changing an awful lot of critical files, which
is true (and also undesirable from a QA standpoint).

I addressed that by doing the i386 subarchitecture rework (which allows me to
slide all the voyager stuff in to the side). However, that still does a
hatchet job on arch/i386. There are also several other people working on
related issues in arch/i386, so it has become a slow job. The current status
is

- PCI rework - In Linus Kernel
- setup/cpu rework - in DJ kernel

I get to wait until the setup/cpu rework makes it to the Linus kernel so I can
slot in the arch subdivisions around it.

James