[fpc-pascal] status of sparc solaris support

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Seth Grover wrote:
> Quick question: http://freepascal.org says:
> 
> "It is available for different processors: Intel x86, Amd64/x86_64,
> PowerPC, PowerPC64, Sparc, ARM."
> "The following operating systems are supported: Linux, FreeBSD, Haiku,
> Mac OS X/Darwin, DOS, Win32, Win64, WinCE, OS/2, Netware (libc and
> classic) and MorphOS."
> 
> Then, lower, it lists:
> 
> "Sparc architecture - 16 MB of RAM is required. Runs on any Sparc
> Linux installation (solaris is experimental)."
> 
> Most of the references to Sparc/Solaris that I'm finding on the
> mailing list and whatnot are quite old. Can someone who knows give me
> a quick rundown as to what the status of Solaris on Sparc is? I'm
> specifically looking to port a Linux shared library to solaris on
> sparc.

Let's try and take this in several stages.

*  SPARC on Linux works, although there is something- possibly an 
alignment error- that causes Lazarus to fail (also affects at least some 
ARM). Bug 0019109, but apart from that I'm running FPC/Lazarus-generated 
code routinely on SPARC (Debian Etch/Lenny/Squeeze).

*  FPC compiler targeting SPARC on Solaris works, together with much of 
the RTL. Bug 0018271 contains working notes of where I had to adjust 
paths etc.

*  I've compiled much of the infrastructure required to support Lazarus 
on SPARC/Solaris, but ground to a halt when it became apparent that many 
of the fundamental libraries weren't available for v10 which is what I 
was running.

*  I'll have another shot at this when I've got time, and when the 
situation with v11 has settled down. I'm not in a position to start 
buying pukka copies so a lot depends on Oracle here, and what their 
plans are for Solaris.

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

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