Bug#865721: openarena: Please add platform support for m68k

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

On 06/24/2017 07:36 PM, Simon McVittie wrote:
>> No. But is this a requirement for each and single patch now?
> 
> If a downstream patch introduces things specific to one architecture,
> then I am not happy about applying that change without at least trivial
> testing on that architecture. For patches that merely make something
> generic (like ioquake3 PR #129) I'm OK with it having been tested on
> *some* architecture.

It's a simple, one-liner patch that will not hurt anyone else.

> If someone (whether that someone is you or not) is interested in running
> this leaf package on their favourite ports architecture, it should be
> straightforward to provide confirmation that a patched build works.

So, I assume you performed these tests on ppc64el and s390x? Did you
actually play OpenArena on an IBM zSeries mainframe? I'm asking because
your package builds there.

>> Why do you explicitly want to discriminate against ports architectures?
> 
> I don't. What I want is to not give the impression that I'm specifically
> supporting architectures where nobody has ever demonstrated this package
> to be functional.

You do not have to support anything. I'm asking you to merge a simple
patch, that's all. No one is going to come to you and ask for support
to run OpenArena on Amiga with an FPGA accelerator or in an emulated
Amiga. I don't understand why you think you have to provide support
for Ports architectures.

>> OpenArena would run perfectly fine on powerpcspe. The reason why the
>> build currently fails there is because upstream thought it's a good
>> idea to hardcode -maltivec on PowerPC even though not all PowerPC
>> targets automatically support AltiVec.
> 
> The issue with powerpc(spe) (which doesn't apply to m68k) is that there
> is a PowerPC bytecode JIT, and I don't know any PowerPC machine code, so
> I don't know whether the output of the JIT relies on Altivec. If it does,
> then the binary compiled without -maltivec might well compile perfectly,
> but not actually work. I would rather have a build configuration that
> is believed to work on at least Altivec PowerPCs (which, in practice,
> seem to be well-correlated with those that have enough 3D processing
> for a game engine) than something that hasn't been tested anywhere.

Again, if people run into problems, they will report them. It's a computer
game, not a sophisticated database that a server infrastructure relies
on.

>> If you remove -maltivec on powerpcspe conditionally (you can apply
>> that particular patch only if $(dpkg --print-architecture) == powerpcspe,
>> the package will build just fine.
> 
> If you can try OpenArena with QVM bytecode on a powerpcspe (or any older
> powerpc with no Altivec, like a G3 Powermac) according to the instructions
> at <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=701561#32> and
> tell me that it does in fact work, I'd be happy to turn off -maltivec
> on either powerpcspe, or powerpcspe and powerpc. There's an untested
> patch on that bug.

Please don't pull of this on me. I'm doing lots of work in Debian Ports
and I have already go through tons of bureaucracy to get patches
merged upstream in projects like OpenJDK, Firefox or GDB. This already
costs me enough nerves and time, so please let's don't start doing
this in Debian as well.

>> You don't think [a 1.2 GHz CPU] will run a 3D shooter from 1999?
> 
> With 3D hardware supported by Mesa, sure. With software rendering,
> it won't be pretty or fast, but it might work (although if I remember
> correctly the idTech3 engine specifically doesn't support software
> rendering).

You can just plug in any PCI Express graphics card into such a PPCSPE
board and they can use the same mesa drivers like you can use on
regular PowerPC. I don't understand why you want proof that it works.

Those boards are fairly modern embedded hardware:

> http://amigax1000.blogspot.de/2016/01/my-a1222-has-arrived.html

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaubitz at debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz at physik.fu-berlin.de
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