[fpc-devel] Porting fpc to linux-sparc64

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

On 29/05/17 08:15, Karoly Balogh (Charlie/SGR) wrote:
> Hi,
> On Sun, 28 May 2017, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
>> When trying to cross-build fpc for sparc64, I ran into linker issues. I was> able to resolve these when changing the ELF format from 32 to 64 bits in> compiler/system/t_linux.pas and changing the dynamic loader path from> /lib/ld-linux.so.2 to /lib64/ld-linux.so.2. However, trying to run these> binaries on an actual sparc64 box running Debian unstable results in bus errors.
> Hmm, we had the last testsuite run for SPARC Linux back in 2013. I wasunder the impression it's still being tested... The Solaris version's lasttestresult is from 2012...
> https://www.freepascal.org/testsuite/cgi-bin/testsuite.cgi?action=1&run1id=150744https://www.freepascal.org/testsuite/cgi-bin/testsuite.cgi?action=1&run1id=120817
> Which might suggest that the trunk could be broken at this point. :(And/or completely unprepared for 64bit in any way. Although we still seemto have a stable 3.0.2 release. Can you try if the stable release built byus works on your system? Any binary from this.
> ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/dist/3.0.2/sparc-linux/

The important thing to know about the linker on 32-bit Solaris is the 
-Xn option to force the native one to be used. Apart from that more info 
is needed before anybody here can comment.

>> Thus, I was wondering whether there are still people around who care for the> SPARC port of fpc and who could help me. We have very fast sparc64 porterboxes> available running Debian unstable and I'd be happy to create accounts on these> machines for anyone who wants to help.
> I don't know anything about SPARC, but if no one else volunteers, I cantake a look. In fact, maybe even a full 64bit SPARC port shouldn't be thathard (famous last words...), but at least a few weeks of work for sure forsomeone who knows the compiler internals.

32-bit 3.0.2 builds without problems for both Linux and Solaris, and by 
and large works including the Lazarus IDE.

My recollection is that the SPARC64 code generator is immature, 
hopefully Jonas will comment on that.

Adrian, I've put very little time into the SPARC 64-bit Debian port, and 
despite tracking the mailing list I'm a little unclear how complete it 
is and- in particular- how easily it installs. Does it support multiarch 
to allow 32-bit binaries to run seamlessly?

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]