From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 19 08:26:29 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3199116A424; Fri, 19 May 2006 08:26:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from mail27.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail27.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.133.168]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73FA743D48; Fri, 19 May 2006 08:26:27 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (c220-239-19-236.belrs4.nsw.optusnet.com.au [220.239.19.236]) by mail27.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k4J8QNfc012701 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Fri, 19 May 2006 18:26:25 +1000 Received: from turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (localhost.vk2pj.dyndns.org [127.0.0.1]) by turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k4J8QNRg001016; Fri, 19 May 2006 18:26:23 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from peter@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org) Received: (from peter@localhost) by turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k4J8QMJK001015; Fri, 19 May 2006 18:26:22 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from peter) Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 18:26:22 +1000 From: Peter Jeremy To: freebsd-alpha@infopuls.com Message-ID: <20060519082621.GA736@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> Mail-Followup-To: Peter Jeremy , freebsd-alpha@infopuls.com, alpha@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org References: <200605111424.04935.jhb@freebsd.org> <20060518101734.4036.qmail@dachs.cyberlink.ch> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060518101734.4036.qmail@dachs.cyberlink.ch> X-PGP-Key: http://members.optusnet.com.au/peterjeremy/pubkey.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Cc: alpha@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEADSUP: Alpha support is being retired in 7.0 X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 08:26:29 -0000 On Thu, 2006-May-18 12:17:34 +0200, freebsd-alpha@infopuls.com wrote: >Of course, I regret that the Alpha branch is not continued in FreeBSD >development because I intend to use this and some other Alpha boxes that I >plan to buy for many years. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, I don't believe anyone is overjoyed at the axing of the Alpha branch. Unfortunately, given the demise of the architecture, enthusiasm for the Alpha has diminished to the point where it is holding back the FreeBSD project. I'll accept my share of the responsibility for this - neither of my Alphas are currently in working condition and I haven't been sufficiently motivated to repair them, as a result, I haven't been following the progress of FreeBSD/Alpha for about 18 months. AFAIK, FreeBSD/Alpha will continue to be supported for the life of the 6.x branch - at least another 3 years. After which, you can always run NetBSD on it. > I like the Alpha architecture and I got the >impression that most of the higher level problems like seg-faults in >Mozilla on Alpha are caused by dirty programming techniques or bugs in the >C compiler related to 64 Bit addressing. Cleaning up such problems would >result in better code for the other architectures also. Definitely. This is one reason why the Alpha branch wasn't axed in the past. However there are now several other 64-bit architectures so this is no longer a justification for maintaining the Alpha. The SPARC64 branch has the added bonus of being a big-endian architecture so it also detects cases where code assumes little-endian addressing. -- Peter Jeremy