Re: [PORTS] RedHat6.0 & Alpha

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> > Also, I found at least a temporary solution to the problem of
> > alpha CPUs being detected as alphaev5, etc... and breaking the 'alpha'
> > makefile conditionals. Just add 'CPU:alpha' to the linux_alpha template.
> > Is there a reason that this would be a bad idea? I don't even really see
> > the reason why config.guess wants to differeniate between different alpha
> > CPUs in the first place?
>
> Some optmizations are turned off in some Makefiles like
> backend/utils/adt and backend/storage/ipc.

From what I can tell (i.e. via grep), the CPU variable is only
used to turn on/off the linux/alpha specific makefile rules that have been
added recently. Now, in the future that might change, and there be
optimizations only for a certain level of alpha chip, which the templates
hack could break. Of course, we could just deal with the problem when we
reach it, since it will not be difficult to undo the templates hack and
come up with another way to detect CPU type at the makefile level.

> Now that I think of it, you can't send out patches for 6.5.1 because
> we don't have the alpha stuff in there that was put in after 6.5.1.
> I think the current snapshot may be safe for general use.

That is what I figured out when the diff between 6.5.1 and
Friday's snapshot came out at about 3.5MB. The time required to backport
the linux/alpha patches to 6.5.1 would be better spent else where.
I just grabbed today's snapshot, patches applied fined, compiled
and ran regression tests with no problems. Also, the regression tests only
generated 20 unaliagned traps this time, which is a reduction from earlier
(I think).
As for distribution packages, we want to get pgsql packages for
alpha with these patches out there so people can pound on them before we
roll the patches into the cvs tree for a formal release. That way,
anything still lingering would be found soon, rather than later. Of
course, we would want the packages to say clearly that they are beta or
preliminary version only, and so don't use for mission critical operations
until one has tested it out.
Anyway, I will make a set of patches on today's snapshot that
includes Uncle G's, and clean up of the linux_alpha template file (setting
-O2 again, and the CPU define), and then post that here to be forwarded on
to package developers by the respective people (I will get them to the
debian people). Also, either a copy of today's snapshot needs to be set
aside (on the ftp site) for applying these patches, or I will stick the
snapshot on my web site.
TTYL.

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| Ryan Kirkpatrick | Boulder, Colorado | rkirkpat(at)nag(dot)cs(dot)colorado(dot)edu |
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