Subject: for the FAQ: need precise meaning of various arch's

From: "Susan G. Kleinmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 09:16:11 -0400

In the process of describing all the binary-foo directories, I realized
I don't really know the answers to these questions:

Exactly what platform does binary-68k refer to?  
Does this mean 
 -- the PowerPC (if so, who makes "the" PowerPC?), or 
 -- any PowerPC, or 
 -- something else (if so, what else)?

Ditto for binary-sparc.  Does this refer to 
 -- Sun Sparcstations, or 
 -- any workstation based on a sparc?  
Does it refer to 
 -- any sparc, or 
 -- only some variants of sparc, e.g., ultra-sparc?

Re: binary-alpha: 
Is there only 1 product line of alphas?  
Does binary-alpha refer to the entirety of that product line, or only the
later (or earlier) generations of it?
Are they only sold by DEC?

I guess at some point it's going to be necessary to ask whether any/all
packages actually run "out of the box" on the new Intel multi-processor
platforms, but I'll put that off til anyone's had a chance to find out.

Regards,
Susan Kleinmann
[email-masked]

---

From: Buddha Buck <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 18:32:38 -0400

> I don't really know the answers to these questions:

I could be wrong, but it is my belief that the manufacturer-specific
system details should be taken care of by the kernel, and individual
programs/packages shouldn't have to worry about it.

>  -- something else (if so, what else)?

Something else:  Machines which use (or are compatable with) variants on
the Motorola 680x0 family of microprocessors that Linux supports.  This
includes the Atari ST family, the Amiga family, and so forth.  If anyone
ports Linux to run on 680x0 based Macintoshes, then this would refer to 
this
platform also.

"binary-ppc" should be for PowerPC based binary files.  This should be 
for
any PPC chip made by Motorola or IBM, and any compatables (we don't 
have a
"binary-cyrix" directory, do we?), on any platform supported by working 
Linux
kernels (The Motorola PowerPPC based workstation line, MkLinux on 
PowerMacs,
etc).

>  -- only some variants of sparc, e.g., ultra-sparc?

I believe it should refer to any sparc-based machine with a working 
linux
kernel.

> Are they only sold by DEC?

DEC may be the only one selling ALPHA chips (I don't know, though), but 
DEC
is certainly not the only one selling ALPHA based workstations.  
Again, I believe that the binary-alpha directory should be for any 
binaries
specific to machines running linux on an alpha (or alpha-compatible) 
processor.

I believe that the main difference between the binaries in binary-bar 
and
in binary-foo is that the binaries in binary-bar are compiled into the 
machine
code native for the bar processor, which is different from the machine 
code native to the foo processor.  

Details like SMP, "fast/chip" memory (on Amiga machines), etc, should 
be dealt
with in the kernel, and should not affect most packages.  This might 
mean that
we would need a kernel-image-amiga_2.0, kernel-image-atari_2.0, etc 
packages.

--
     Buddha Buck                      [email-masked]
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacaphony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects."  -- A.L.A. v. U.S. Dept. of Justice

---

From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 17 Jul 1996 09:52:00 +0200

>  -- something else (if so, what else)?

It means the 680x0 family of processors, with x=2, 3, 4, or 6. (68020  
needs an external MMU - 68851? Better look at the FAQ for that port, I'm  
sure there is one.) There is no real relation to the PowerPC, except that  
Motorola makes both and Apple has used both, and there is a Linux port for  
both. Well, two ports for the PowerPC - one native, and one with a layer  
of Mach in between.

> platforms, but I'll put that off til anyone's had a chance to find out.

As far as I've heard, there was a Compaq machine that wouldn't work  
because it didn't support some Intel MP standard. Alan "Linux MP" Cox  
would probably be the guy to ask that question.

MfG Kai

---

From: Juergen Menden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 11:05:20 +0200 (MET DST)

On 17 Jul 1996, Kai Henningsen wrote:
> It means the 680x0 family of processors, with x=2, 3, 4, or 6. 

the ppc is as near to the m68k as the mips, sparc, m68k are near to the 
i386. they are completely different processors with no connection 
whatsoever.

currently the m68k port of the linux kernel is done mainly for the
atari and amiga type of computers, but also for some vme based 
industry standard boards.

there are very regularly questions whether there is a port of linux
to the old m68k based mac's. the answer is short: no. the problem is
that anyone want's such a beast, but noone tries to make one. there 
is also another problem with apple, which doesn't give anyone
the needed hardware information, but some information should be 
possible to gather from the netbsd port.

> (68020 needs an external MMU - 68851? Better look at the FAQ for 
> that port, I'm sure there is one.) 

yes, eg on tsx-11 somewhere in .../linux/680x0/FAQ.gz, as well as
in the news.answers archives in linux/m68k-faq and regularily on
comp.os.linux.m68k, and just as well i can send it to you.

jjm

ps: if you have some m68k questions please direct them to 
[email-masked] as there is too much traffic here
that i could scan through all articles

-- 
Juergen Menden                   | Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by me, 
tel:    +49 (89) 289 - 22387     +-----------+ are (usually) not the opinions 
e-mail: [email-masked]     | of anyone else on this planet.

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