svn commit: r504198 - head/Mk

[Cy Schubert]

In message <20190615134332.GA32655 at FreeBSD.org>, Alexey Dokuchaev 
writes:
> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 06:13:46AM +0000, Mark Linimon wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 14, 2019 at 05:58:22PM +0000, Alexey Dokuchaev wrote:
> > > These old GCC releases are often the only working solution for ports
> > > on sparc64/powerpc
> > 
> > I'm not aware of the powerpc dependencies.  Do you have a list?
> > We are actively working on ports on powerpc (especially powerpc64).
>
> Actually, things look better on powerpc, last time I recall I was able
> to successfully build gcc7 port for it.  Typically I'd use earlier
> versions because they take less tmpfs space and faster to build.
>
> > w/rt sparc64, I no longer consider sparc64 viable.  There is too much
> > pushback whenever I mention it.  My development machines were powered
> > down 1.5 years ago as I turned my attention primarily to powerpc64
> > and to some extent arm*.
>
> That's very sad.  I've been fixing some BROKEN_sparc64 ports in the
> early 2018 using QEMU.  It was very slow, but worked fine overall.
> I forgot exactly which FreeBSD version I was able to boot.

You can thank Oracle for that. Sure the handwriting was on the wall, 
Oracle pretty much set the tone with the various decisions they've made 
regarding Sparc and Solaris. At $JOB the push retire Sparc is 
noticeable. One would think that they are being encouraged to replace 
Sparc (& PowerPC) with x86 on Linux but even that is being discouraged 
in favour of docker images using the Linux or Windows ABI. Sadly 
traditional platforms are a thing of the past, current platforms will 
soon be, to be replaced by layers of stubs. Not that I agree with it 
but it is an observation.

Where this will end up is anybody's guess but the transformation is 
seismic. The gig economy plays into this as well, as witnessed how 
contracts for development of microservices are contracted out here.


-- 
Cheers,
Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert at cschubert.com>
FreeBSD UNIX:  <cy at FreeBSD.org>   Web:  http://www.FreeBSD.org

	The need of the many outweighs the greed of the few.