[OpenIndiana-discuss] Sparc

Peter jini at zeus.net.au
Mon Sep 8 08:37:28 UTC 2014 

Sounds like this community has some very passionate developers.

Thanks for the info.

Regards,

Peter.

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>       1. Re: Sparc (Dormition Skete (Hotmail))
>       2. Re: Sparc (Andreas Wacknitz)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 12:03:58 -0600
> From: "Dormition Skete (Hotmail)" <dormitionskete at hotmail.com>
> To: Discussion list for OpenIndiana
>     <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] Sparc
> Message-ID: <BLU437-SMTP78464BEB5E514ECE75BC53C2C30 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> Ok, since no one else wants to bite, I guess I will.   
> 
> I haven?t spoken with Martin or spent any significant time watching his
> distro for a while now, so this information may not be entirely up to
> date; but it?s highly unlikely that things have changed significantly in
> recent months.
> 
> A couple of years ago, Martin quit his job (sort of) and embarked upon
> making openSXCE.   It was a one-man effort, requiring extreme
> self-sacrifice.   His announcement of the distro ruffled quite a few
> feathers in multiple communities, and in the months following he seems
> to have been shunned and maligned by the Illumos community, the
> OpenIndiana community (to some extent), and probably a few others.   
> 
> Because of that, he shifted openSXCE away from Illumos to a derivative
> of it (?) called Dillix (sp ?).   I?m not sure how significant that is. 
> He?s not the only one to have had problems with Illumos.   Look at the
> website for Schillix, and you?ll see they had problems with Illumos, too.
> 
> His May 2014 release was the first for the past year.   I think he
> initially wanted to release updates monthly, but that has not
> materialized yet.   (It?s a lot of work.)
> 
> I?ve included below his post to this list announcing the distro. 
> Although the status is not current, it'll give you a lot of insight
> about openSXCE and where he wants to take it.
> 
> He is extremely dedicated to the distro, and the extreme self-sacrifice
> have at times made him come across as being less than stable; but in my
> conversations with him privately, he seems like a pretty decent fellow.   
> 
> I believe he collaborates with a few people, primarily fellow-Russians,
> whom he seems to feel more at ease with, but the distro seems to remain
> primarily his baby at this time.   I?m sure he would welcome more help,
> and I believe he would like to see the community to grow, and the
> development of it to grow beyond primarily himself.   He doesn't seem to
> have a real good grasp about how to make that happen, though.
> 
> His living situation has improved this past year, but the last I knew,
> it was not very good, to say the least, and probably still isn?t what
> most folks would consider reasonable.   He could use some financial help
> in a serious way.   Even just a few dollars here and there mean a lot to
> him.   
> 
> The official website is: http://www.opensxce.org
> 
> He used to have a mailing list that someone in the Netherlands set up
> for him, but it had very little traffic, and seems to have disappeared
> in recent months.
> 
> If you?re interested, write him at martin at martux.org   
> 
> It appears to be the only open source distro for sparc, and I have not
> seen anyone else having much interest in it, so if you want an open
> source distro for sparc, I think that is your only option.   And I?m not
> sure I should call this an ?open source? project, but it is a free one.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Peter, heiromonk
> 
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> > From: Martin Bochnig <martin at martux.org>
> > Subject: [OpenIndiana-discuss] A potential new Illumos reference
> > distro candidate: IA32, AMD64, sun4u, sun4v Date: December 17, 2012 at
> > 7:22:04 PM MST To: Discussion list for OpenIndiana
> > <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org> Reply-To: Discussion list for
> > OpenIndiana <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> > 
> > Dear Illumos and all OpenSolaris comrades
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Sorry that I wasn't online for 2 months.
> > I did not break my promise: In fact I did nothing else but working on
> > Illumos' new SVR4 based reference distro for IA32, AMD64 and sun4u as
> > well as sun4v, with X11, also on _all_ SPARC platforms.
> > 
> > 
> > As it was the goal to create sort of reference distro, the standards
> > needed to be kept high.
> > For this reason it didn't take 5 weeks, as originally estimated, but 5
> > months. FULLTIME(!), night and day, no holidays   ...
> > 
> > In fact I forgot to earn money (just had no minute), for this reason I
> > lost my apartment.
> > I needed to live 6 weeks in my old year 1988 built Mercedes.
> > Therefore I could not go online. I have no clue what has happened here
> > on our lists.
> > So far I only had time to read some of today's messages.
> > 
> > I would probably never feel ready to release anything, because
> > demand_for_perfection bugs me now and then.
> > However, this time I did not just create a non-installable crappy
> > LiveDVD as in the past with MartUX.
> > 
> > Instead I ported distro_const and caiman's text-install and
> > gui-install to use SVR4 instead of IPS, for convenience the excellent
> > OpenCSW's pkgutil was chosen.
> > Not just to get it to function "somehow", but to remove all traces of
> > that IPS stuff, while keeping the useful things in, but to match them
> > as much as possible with pkgutil   ...
> > 
> > There would have been 2 fundamental approaches: Easy and tougher.
> > The first would be to take all IPS manifests and convert them
> > semi-automated to SVR4 prototype/pkginfo/depend files.
> > And simply to keep all the new pkg sets and pkg names and dependencies
> > just intact.
> > This would certainly be nice and interesting. Maybe someone want's to
> > do that, too   :)
> > However, this would break dependency resolution backwards
> > compatibility to all legacy SVR4 packages in existance.
> > 
> > For this reason, I neglected it.
> > 
> > The second one was, to reverse-engineer everything back to the old
> > times. And that's what I did.
> > 
> > Not just for Illumos/OSnet, but for ___all___ consolidations.
> > Not just to get old pkgdefs to build without failiure (where they are
> > available), but also to re-assign more than 15 thousand (!) unassigned
> > files to new pkgdefs (this number for Illumos ON alone!!!)
> > Also it was necessary to take older G11N checkouts (just as one
> > example), because we need the good old /usr/openwin
> > internationalization stuff as well, for OpenXsun.
> > 
> > OpenXsun's port itself took another 3 weeks.
> > And also the Illumos kernel needed to
> > It is an endless endless endless list.
> > And basicly one never gets 100% finished (depending on how high your
> > standards of perfection are).
> > However, originally I promised to come back to you on October 18th.
> > Today is December 18th. Probablybout time to make a short
> > pre-announcement.
> > 
> > 
> > Current Status:
> > 
> > 0.) Illumos/Nevada built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged: YES
> > 
> > 1.) Caiman Sliminstall: distro_const: (always Python based) ported to
> > SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged into
> > SVR4: YES
> > text-install (Python version):
> > ported to SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully
> > packaged into SVR4: YES
> > gui-install   (C version)
> > ported to SVR4 OpenCSW pkgutil: for x86 and SPARC: YES,
> > Fully packaged into SVR4: YES
> > (the rest of Caiman under way, but
> > stopped due to the other major TODO's)
> > 
> > 2.) X11-NV (Xorg): built for x86 and SPARC: YES,   Fully packaged into
> > SVR4: YES
> > 
> > 3.) openXsun: ported to SPARC-Illumos: YES, Fully packaged into SVR4:
> > YES
> > 
> > 4.) oi-build/illumos-build/sfw: built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully
> > packaged into SVR4: YES
> > 
> > 5.) g11n including SUNWxsun-keytables for SPARC, plus messages and
> > inputmethod: built for x86 and SPARC: YES, Fully packaged into SVR4:
> > YES
> > 
> > 5.) JDS: 80% built for SPARC, 95% built for x86, 100% fully packaged
> > into SVR4: YES
> > 
> > 6.) Hacked pkgutil to finally support SUNW core packages (that are
> > split into different architecture versions, yet all have the samae
> > package names in their pkginfo files (without their arch specific
> > suffix!): YES.
> > As a result, the patched version of pkgutil can be used to install the
> > entire new OS, yet still supports installing OpenCSW and Blastwave
> > packages, if you just add a mirror line! You can tweak the order of
> > preference at which, by simply changing (or commenting in/out) mirror
> > lines.
> > Plus: The mirror can also be a simple locally available filesystem
> > directory. No httpd needs to be running, and it doesn't matter on what
> > fs type these directories reside.
> > 
> > As time pressure forces me to release something, although I'm not
> > entirely ready (still missing dependencies, that I still installed
> > from the old Solaris DVD for internal testing (but which aren'r
> > re-distributable).
> > 
> > I can create a few dirty fake packages to work around this problem for
> > now. Because I don't really want to use pkgutil's --nodeps option. And
> > to exclude specific packages doesn't work right now.
> > Need to look, why.
> > 
> > As said, the last few inches still need to be completed.
> > But I do understand that you want to see some proof to play with.
> > The text_install iso's do get released on holy eve, December 24th.
> > As does the complete openXsun port src.
> > All the other sources will get 100% released, too. But there is still
> > a ton of temporary intermediate files in them.
> > And I so far never cared about adding me or the new project's name to
> > the CDDL headers (e.g. as Nexenta uses to do). Need to aks a few folks
> > about that.
> > All that needs to get polished, and it will.
> > 
> > 
> > Project name: You will enjoy it :)
> > It is not intended to be "my" distro.
> > It is neither MartUX, nor and other personified variant.
> > But as I cannot register the new domain without credit card (with some
> > minimal balance ...), I'm not sure if the name should be spoken out
> > already.
> > 
> > OURdistro!!!!! That is the vision.
> > In 6 days you can test the first installable text-install iso's for
> > SPARC and x86.
> > The gui-install version that boots into JDS follows a few days later.
> > As do the sources (except for openXsun, which you get on the first
> > day, December 24th)
> > 
> > Our distro, our project, our way of life   :)
> > 
> > 
> > CREDITS: I thank my family and my wife, mother, grandmother for all
> > the unbelievable support and financial help and understanding.
> > Thanks go also to Al Hopper, who always helped me, did all the hosting
> > work and donated 200$ in 2009.
> > Thanks also to Volker Brandt, who borrowed me 200EUR 2 months ago
> > (Volker: You will get them back, somehow, promised ...)
> > Also to Brian Gupta, who donated 3000$ in 2008 and rescued my life.
> > Also to Ken Mays, who created the nice Wiki page for us, and helped
> > forwarding a V490 cpu board to me, from overseas.
> > 
> > kind regards, and till December 24th!
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > %martin bochnig
> > http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/MartUX_OpenIndiana+oi_151a+SPARC+LiveDVD
> > http://www.youtube.com/user/MartUXopensolaris
> > http://www.facebook.com/pages/MartUX_SPARC-OpenIndiana/357912020962940
> > https://twitter.com/MartinBochnig
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenIndiana-discuss mailing list
> > OpenIndiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 21:59:29 +0200
> From: Andreas Wacknitz <a.wacknitz at gmx.de>
> To: Discussion list for OpenIndiana
>     <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>
> Subject: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] Sparc
> Message-ID: <CD72ADEC-6706-43E7-924C-7046CC069954 at gmx.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
> 
> 
> Am 06.09.2014 um 20:03 schrieb Dormition Skete (Hotmail)
> <dormitionskete at hotmail.com>:
> 
> > Ok, since no one else wants to bite, I guess I will.   
> > 
> > I haven?t spoken with Martin or spent any significant time watching
> > his distro for a while now, so this information may not be entirely up
> > to date; but it?s highly unlikely that things have changed
> > significantly in recent months.
> > 
> > A couple of years ago, Martin quit his job (sort of) and embarked upon
> > making openSXCE.   It was a one-man effort, requiring extreme
> > self-sacrifice.   His announcement of the distro ruffled quite a few
> > feathers in multiple communities, and in the months following he seems
> > to have been shunned and maligned by the Illumos community, the
> > OpenIndiana community (to some extent), and probably a few others.   
> > 
> > Because of that, he shifted openSXCE away from Illumos to a derivative
> > of it (?) called Dillix (sp ?).   I?m not sure how significant that is.
> >   He?s not the only one to have had problems with Illumos.   Look at the
> > website for Schillix, and
> As far as I remember it was DilOS (www.dilos.org). If you look at the
> IRC channel of it (#dilos) you can see that there are SPARC packages
> being build but no downloadable ISO so far (x86 only yet). DilOS is an
> Illumos based distribution that uses the Debian package management
> system. OpenSXCE uses the old SysV package management system. As far as
> I understand with some enhancements (like pkgutil from OpenCSW).
> 
> As I see the situation, Martin is frustrated because of several things.
> First, he gets only very few money for his work on OpenSXCE. Alas there
> is no real community around OpenSXCE evolving. Second, Illumos is mostly
> driven by some folks working for companies that use Illumos for their
> own distributions which are all x86 server oriented. On top of that
> there is a controversy about the package management system. So this is
> also frustrating for him. Probably he would add some more to this list.
> 
> So, there is no special interest in SPARC or desktop left. My impression
> is that people interested in it are getting fewer and fewer.
> 
> 
> > you?ll see they had problems with Illumos, too.
> > 
> > His May 2014 release was the first for the past year.   I think he
> > initially wanted to release updates monthly, but that has not
> > materialized yet.   (It?s a lot of work.)
> > 
> The OpenSXCE is an amazing work of a single person. Alas it has some
> rough edges on my Blade 2000. Eg. I needed to install some missing
> packages (bind) to get networking work. And at the moment gdm is not
> starting correctly because something is changing the access to /tmp
> during boot. When I correct it (chmod 1777 /tmp) I can successfully
> restart gdm.
> 
> I am using OpenIndiana Hipster successfully since it arrived on my Ultra
> 25. For me it makes a nice Workstation OS as I was able to build my
> preferred programming environments (Pharo Smalltalk (http://pharo.org;
> alas FFI not yet working), Racket (http://racket-lang.org) and Clojure
> (http://clojure.org)). On my Blade 2000 I was able to build and install
> Racket (some OpenCSW packages were needed) and Clojure. Clojure was
> relatively simple, after the /tmp fix leiningen installed Clojure
> bravely.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Andreas
> 
> 
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