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Debian Release Mgr. Proposes Dropping Some Archs

Posted by timothy on from the notion-that-could-become-an-idea-and-maybe-a-concept dept.

smerdyakov writes "In this story posted by Andrew Orlowski of the Register Debian Release manager Steve Langasek has announced that support will be dropped for all but four computer architectures. Among the reasons cited for doing this are improving testing coordination, 'a more limber release process' and ultimately a ('hopefully') shorter release cyle. The main architectures to survive will be Intel x86, AMD64, PowerPC and IA-64." Actually, the story says clearly that this is only a proposal at this point, but it's definitely something to watch.

6 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. Those would be the good ones to keep... by thepotoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seeing as they're the major systems out there. But IA-64? I've barely heard of that, and TFA says Microsoft dropped XP for that. Can anyone elaborate as to why this one was kept?

    --
    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
    1. Re:Those would be the good ones to keep... by Cramer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I beg to differ. As a sparc/linux user and kernel hacker, the linux kernel is supported on sparc (sparc64 at least, sparc32 really is some dead-end hardware.) Granted, there aren't 10,000 developers maintaining it -- there doesn't need to be -- but it is maintained. The live development kernel (bitkeeper) has been usable for a very long time on sparc. So, either you aren't using sparc/linux, you're on sparc32 hardware, or you're just very unlucky. For the record, there are many x86 users that are frequently broken, too.

      The lack of a SPARC maintainer is a concern, but one that can easily be addressed. (politics aside.)

    2. Re:Those would be the good ones to keep... by Anne+Honime · · Score: 4, Interesting
      However, sparc far better supported in NetBSD and OpenBSD then it is in Linux.

      Why use linux on sparc 32 in 3 letters : SMP.

      Fine hardware, dead cheap, and NO bsd was up to it (until recently, if it happens to work now).

      Debian back out in that area is a stab in the back for any user.

  2. About time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thanks a lot! This was about time, or else we would never get a new stable release. Lets just hope thats it gets further then just beeing an proposal...

  3. Don't we already have that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's called Ubuntu.

  4. What about ARM ? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    By the end of this year, the majority of Linux systems will be cell phones and settop boxes/ digital TV etc running on ARM and PowerPC architectures .... not x86. I would have thought that keeping ARM would be a GoodThing.

    Perhaps Debian isn't trying to address the embedded segment.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.