Alpha Source Code?

[Tom Linden]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: axp-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:axp-list-bounces at redhat.com]On
>Behalf Of Mike A. Harris
>Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 10:30 AM
>To: Linux and Red Hat on Alpha processors
>Subject: Re: Alpha Source Code?
>
>
>On Sat, 4 Dec 2004, Dialup Jon Norstog wrote:
>
>>To the list, and particularly the Alpha Core guys: 
>>
>>Did you use the AMD64-bit source code, or the i86 sources? I was 
>thinkin about
>>taking a crack at compiling open office if I don't have to mess 
>around with
>>the sources too much.
>>
>>Or is it the same source code?
>
>This may or may not be relevant to your question, but I think it 
>may shed some light on how Fedora Core is developed anyway...
>
>
>Fedora Core is developed internally at Red Hat on 7 different
>architectures simultaneously.  Every single RPM package that gets 
>built in our internal "rawhide" collection instance, is 
>automatically built on all 7 architectures.  The architectures 
>include:
>
>x86
>AMD64
>ia64
>ppc
>ppc64
>s390
>s390x
>
Be interesting if you could % figures along side those architectures
indicating redhat shipmets.


>If the build fails on any one of these architectures, the 
>buildsystem terminates the build on all of the others 
>automatically.  The developer must investigate the cause of the 
>build failure on whatever system it failed on, and then fix the 
>src.rpm appropriately if it is a packaging/software bug/glitch, 
>or fix the buildsystem if it is a glitch in the build system, 
>such as out of disk space or some other problem.
>
>The general idea behind this, is to have a single-source cross 
>architecture build environment, where one single src.rpm is used 
>to produce binaries on all architectures that we develop for.  
>This is adhered to strictly and enforced by the build system.  
>There are a few exceptions to the rule, such as the Linux kernel, 
>and software packages which are architecture specific 
>(ExclusiveArch'd) or specifically not for given architecture(s) 
>(ExcludeArch'd).
>
>As such, we have a single SRPMS directory, which contains all of 
>the src.rpms used to build the entire OS on all architectures.  
>Of course, each package may have conditionalized patches, or 
>other tidbits, but they all come from a single pool.
>
>Additionally, since we automatically build on all 7 architectures
>always, the OS as a result, is constantly ported to all 7 of
>these architectures.  Bugs that get fixed, get fixed on all
>arches at the same time, and endian specific bugs, or 32/64 bit 
>specific bugs, etc. fixed for one architecture, generally will 
>also fix the same problem for other architectures (depending on 
>the specifics of the problem).
>
>Since we currently build and ship our OS for 32bit little and 
>big endian, and 64bit little and big endian hardware, the OS is 
>very highly portable as a whole, and porting it to other 
>architectures which we do not currently support or build for, is 
>fairly simple for the most part.  The biggest amount of work 
>involved in a new OS port is actually not building the rpms at 
>all, but rather toolchain development, kernel, glibc, xorg-x11, 
>and a number of other core system components.  Once these are in 
>place, the rest of the OS more or less just recompiles untouched, 
>with some noteable exceptions such as openoffice, and some other 
>large packages that may need some architectural loving care.
>
>My assumption is Alpha Core used the Fedora Core provided 
>src.rpms as a basis for the port to Alpha, and just fixed bugs, 
>etc. from that codebase, which as mentioned above isn't specific 
>to AMD64, or any other arch, but rather is shared among all 
>arches.
>
>Hope this helps.
>TTYL
>
>-- 
>Mike A. Harris        ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
>OS Systems Engineer   -   X11 Developer   -   Red Hat
>
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