Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/sparc64-port

• Created: 2006-07-05 by FabioMassimoDiNitto

• Contributors: FabioMassimoDiNitto

• Packages affected: glibc, kernel, installer, xorg

Summary

Dapper released with sparc server support. This spec aims to provide direction and goals for the next release (edgy) of the sparc port.

Rationale

Being able to provide a consistent user experience across different architectures is an important goal. At the moment sparc is still not considered as mature as the x86/amd64/powerpc ports. We want to make the sparc port as good or better than the other ports with regards to stability, quality and maturity.

Use cases

* Company foo wants to use N1 and N2 for a custom application they are creating. Ubuntu provides a well-optimized glibc which helps them reduce time needed for the computations.

* Webhosting company bar does an enormous amount of SSL transactions. They decide to use Ubuntu since it has SSL acceleration in hardware on sparc N1 and N2 CPUs.

* University baz needs to do a very special mass deployment of Ubuntu sparc, but the default OBP setting to boot from disk0 does not fit them. Ubuntu provides the ability to preseed/modify the OBP which enables them to save a lot of manpower.

* Sun wants to demonstrate Ubuntu to their customers on their brand new sparc based workstation and be able to install with Ubiquity.

Design and Implementation

• Enable all possible glibc optimizations for N1 and N2:
  • Build libc6 with gcc-4.1. (done)
  • Enable -mcpu=niagara for glibc sparcv9v and sparc64v flavours. (done)
• Installer:
  • Set automatically OBP boot device to point to a silo instance.
  Postponed to edgy+1:
• Add ssl hw accelerator support.
• Make X autoconfig rock hard:
  • X driver autodetection on sparc needs to be done almost from scratch:
    • the db needs to understand/know/detect/handle sbus video cards and framebuffer only video cards.
    • according to the card detection a proper resolution detection needs to be implemented and implementation varies according to the card bus type. (ex: framebuffer can use kernel sysctl to gather info)
• Create and test Live CD for sparc
  • Arrange for daily livefs builds for sparc on an autobuilder machine
    • If squashfs does not work properly on sparc, casper device-mapper and ext2 may be used instead
  • Arrange for daily live ISO builds as part of the normal CD image build process
• Complete Ubiquity silo support.

Unresolved issues

• LDOM installation is binded to a firmware from SUN that is not publicaly available yet.

• FabioMassimoDiNitto has no usable sparc based workstation. X tasks need to be delegated.

CategorySpec