Re: The SPARC target

Daniel Jacobowitz
2003-08-17T20:51:04Z

On Sun, Aug 17, 2003 at 10:48:47PM +0200, Mark Kettenis wrote:
> Folks,
>
> The SPARC target has been unmaintained for quite some time now[1]
> (since november 2001) and it shows. It doesn't compile on FreeBSD,
> and running the testsuite on FreeBSD/sparc64 (after fixing it),
> Solaris 2.8 and NetBSD/sparc results in hundreds of unexpected
> failures with quite a few unresolved testcases. I think the target is
> bordering on (un)usability.
>
> It's obvious what's wrong: the code is in a very bad shape. It's
> deprecation and obsoletion everywhere. It's gotten to a point where
> *I* can't make any sense out of it anymore. Instead of fixing the old
> broken code, I started implementing a FreeBSD/sparc64 target from
> scratch. Even though my work isn't finished yet, it already does a
> better job than the existing SPARC target. Of course it uses the new
> unwinder framework. I hope to be able to finish it in the coming
> weeks, and check it in alongide the old code. The new target is
> 64-bit only (which is fine for FreeBSD/sparc64), but I have
> anticipated on writing the 32-bit bits. When those are ready I intend
> to convert all "active" SPARC targets to use the new code, replacing
> the old 32-bit code with the new 32-bit code. Unfortunately, I won't
> be able to test all SPARC targets. As a result we'll probably end up
> with a number of broken SPARC targets. Consider this message as a
> HEADS UP.

This is wonderful news. If you need any testing on sparc-linux please
let me know.

--
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software Debian GNU/Linux Developer