Hello,

I noticed there is no binary FPC 3.0.2 Linux release for SPARC. Should it be possible to compile it for SPARC, possibly using the older binary 2.6.2 release?

If yes, I am interested in buying a used UltraSPARC system. If it has a DVD-ROM and a video board, it should be easy to install Linux on it, is that correct?

Cheers,
Tobias Giesen

Hello, I noticed there is no binary FPC 3.0.2 Linux release for SPARC. Should it be possible to compile it for SPARC, possibly using the older binary 2.6.2 release? If yes, I am interested in buying a used UltraSPARC system. If it has a DVD-ROM and avideo board, it should be easy to install Linux on it, is that correct? Cheers,Tobias Giesen

From the FPC side of things, I think that I tested 2.6.4 on SPARC but I can't remember how far I progressed into 2.6.4 or whether I touched 3.0 at all. I have no immediate (i.e. this weekend) plans to revisit the architecture, same applies to Solaris.

From the architecture side of things, Linux (which in practice means Debian) is in deep trouble on SPARC. The core problem is that for the last 10 years or so the kernel has been 64-bit with 32-bit "userland", but that is now unsupportable and there is frenzied activity from a very small number of developers trying to get the entire thing 64-bit. How FPC will behave on that is, of course, anybody's guess.

So quite frankly, you're likely to find that the last mostly-reliable Linux to run on SPARC is approximately Debian "Lenny", and you will also find that the age of the system libraries on that will gradually make supporting FPC on it a problem. You /might/ be able to start with Lenny and update to Squeeze or later, but my experience with Debian SPARC installation media post-Lenny was deeply frustrating.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. SPARC systems can be great fun, particularly in cold weather :-)

Hello,
many thanks for the info! So if I explore the UltraSPARC platform, I guess I will stick with the available older binary release of FPC. I think it will be able to compile my software with minimal changes.

I wonder if I compile something on an UltraSPARC server, if the compiled program would run on a NetGear ReadyNAS Duo with Infrant IT3107 Sparc processor? Do you know?

Cheers,
Tobias Giesen

----

Kind Regards,
Tobias Giesen

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If you are adventurous,
you might want to try the experimental files in:
ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/contrib/test-cross-3.0.2/

it does contain a partial installer for sparc-linux, cross-compiled on a x86_64-linux machine.

The results using qemu-sparc are not that bad,
considering the fact that no one is really actively testing or even maintaining this CPU target.

It would be glad to get feedback if it works for you, for instance if you are able to generate a full native installation from the 3.0.2 sources
using this cross-tar.gz file.

Pierre Muller

Hello,
great, I will get my server next week and try it!
Cheers,
Tobias

----

Kind Regards,
Tobias Giesen

Super Flexible Software Ltd. & Co. KG
Buddenstr. 29-31
48143 Münster, Germany
www.superflexible.com
www.tgtools.com

----------------------------------------------------------- Registered at register court Münster as HRA 9716
Liability / general partner: TGTools Ltd.
Company No. 05513299
Registered in England and Wales
Directors: Tobias Giesen and Claudia Giesen

ANYBODY: The SPARC mirror pages have a 3.0.2 MIPS binary on them.

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

If you are adventurous,you might want to try the experimental files in:ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/contrib/test-cross-3.0.2/ it does contain a partial installer for sparc-linux,cross-compiled on a x86_64-linux machine. The results using qemu-sparc are not that bad,considering the fact that no one is really actively testing or even maintaining this CPU target. It would be glad to get feedback if it works for you,for instance if you are able to generate a full nativeinstallation from the 3.0.2 sourcesusing this cross-tar.gz file.

Most of the issues in SPARC were a result of the architecture's insistence on accurate data alignment, which TBH I think is something worth testing on occasion. I think there was a residual problem in the Lazarus help display, but apart from that it was pretty good when I last looked.

Going back to a couple of the OP's questions:

> I noticed there is no binary FPC 3.0.2 Linux release for SPARC. > Should it be possible to compile it for SPARC, possibly using the > older binary 2.6.2 release?

If 2.6.2 is the last available then you'll first need to build 2.6.4 and use that to build 3.0. Or you might need to use a development version as an intermediary. If you're up to getting a fairly recent Linux running on SPARC then I'd say that a bit of compilation and source tweaking is well within your capabilities :-)

I should have at least one system that I can fire up to check what I changed, but most of our SPARCs have been pensioned off- certainly the ones up to running a fairly big compilation. Even the desktop systems were hungry and noisy by today's standards.

> If it has a> DVD-ROM and a video board, it should be easy to install > Linux on it, is that correct?

Equally easy using a serial terminal, which sidesteps Sun's "Oops, we've lost the graphics board documentation" problem.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

From the architecture side of things, Linux (which in practice means Debian) is in deep trouble on SPARC. The core problem is that for the

One could always try FreeBSD + SPARC too.

https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/sparc.html

Regards,
Graeme

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

On 2017-03-11 20:06, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:> From the architecture side of things, Linux (which in practice means > Debian) is in deep trouble on SPARC. The core problem is that for the One could always try FreeBSD + SPARC too. https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/sparc.html

Yes, I agree and was planning to mention it (and you as an occasional advocate). However has anybody, /ever/, tried FPC on that combination? Does xBSD have the same problem as Linux that things like syscall numbers tend to vary across platforms?

I've spoken to people who gave me to understand that SPARC had a bit more life in it on xBSD than on Linux, and if it's still viable there as a 32-bit target it might be preferable. I've only fired up the new 64-bit SPARC Debian on a couple of occasions, and I'd imagine that providing backward compatibility (i.e. Multiarch etc.) isn't high on the porters list of priorities.

This was probably my fault,
I hope I fixed it, back to 2.6.2 for now,
I will wait to get some feedback before put the cross-3.0.2 at that place.

Pierre

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

I've spoken to people who gave me to understand that SPARC had a bit more life in it on xBSD than on Linux, and if it's still viable there as a 32-bit target it might be preferable.

Under FreeBSD, SPARC64 seems more supported that 32-bit. There are also official SPARC64 release ISO images for the latest FreeBSD 11.

https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.0R/announce.html

At the bottom of the page.

Regards,
Graeme

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

On 2017-03-12 13:04, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:> I've spoken to people who gave me to understand that SPARC had a bit > more life in it on xBSD than on Linux, and if it's still viable there as > a 32-bit target it might be preferable. Under FreeBSD, SPARC64 seems more supported that 32-bit. There are alsoofficial SPARC64 release ISO images for the latest FreeBSD 11. https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.0R/announce.html At the bottom of the page.

I don't see much chance of a 64-bit FPC for SPARC this month.

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

> -----Message d'origine-----> De : fpc-pascal De la> part de Mark Morgan Lloyd> Envoyé : dimanche 12 mars 2017 11:14> À : > Objet : Re: [fpc-pascal] SPARC / Linux> > ANYBODY: The SPARC mirror pages have a 3.0.2 MIPS binary on them.This was probably my fault,I hope I fixed it, back to 2.6.2 for now,I will wait to get some feedback before put the cross-3.0.2at that place.

Alternatively, I could build some new native binaries if somebody pointed 've been building fpcbuild for years, but
don't know what else would be involved.

Hi Mark,

if you mean build a native installer for 32-bt
sparc-linux, I can tell you want you need to do:

- upload fpcbuild-3.0.2.tar.gz source,
- unpack it to /dir/to/fpcbuild-3.0.2
- upload the cross installer that I described in this thread ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/contrib/test-cross-3.0.2/fpc-3.0.2.sparc-linux.tar.gz and install it in some /dir/to/temp-3.0.2-dir
Check if installation generated a symlink in
/dir/to/temp-3.0.2/bin for ppcsparc, otherwise use: ln -s ../fpc/lib/3.0.2/ppcsparc ppcsparc
in that bin directory.
- add /dir/to/temp-3.0.2/bin dir in front of your PATH environment variable.

Move to /dir/to/fpcbuild-3.0.2.
Use install/makepack
Which will ask for:
- a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE, which (if you do not have any, or if the compilation later fails due to some linking errors inside IDE), you can disable by passing environment variable CHECKLIBGDB=no.

- it will also ask for a documentation file,
which you download from the Free Pascal ftp server as well.

Launch once more install/makepack...
This time, it should do everything and
generated at /dir/to/fpcbuild-3.0.2 a new
fpc-3.0.2.sparc-linux.tar
which will contain a full installer.

A last reason why this could fail is that there is no fpcmake in the cross-installer... In that case, you will need to do this:
- move to fpcsrc level
- run
make install INSTALLPREFIX=/dir/to/second-temp-3.0.2 and restart makepack after adding /dir/to/second-temp-3.0.2 in front of PATH variable.

I hope the instructions are clear,
and that I didn't forget any possible problem...

Pierre

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

Hi Mark, if you mean build a native installer for 32-btsparc-linux, I can tell you want you need to do:

I'm used to building it for my own use. I'll take a look at your instructions for versions later than 2.6.2, since even getting 2.6.4 or 3.0.0 available would be progress. Time permitting :-(

a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE,which (if you do not have

I've found libgdb to be a problem on several platforms, it's not maintained actively.

I would also be interested in those other versions, if you succeed in building them.

You are breaking my heart...
I am trying to maintain the internal GDB support for FP IDE, but even if I am a member of the GDB maintainer team, this is a huge task, which I never really have time to fulfill.

I have no access to any sparc machine, thus it is even more difficult to maintain such targets.

Pierre

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

> -----Message d'origine-----> De : fpc-pascal De la> part de Mark Morgan Lloyd> Envoyé : lundi 13 mars 2017 09:11> À : > Objet : Re: [fpc-pascal] SPARC / Linux> > On 13/03/17 06:30, Pierre Free Pascal wrote:> > Hi Mark,> > if you mean build a native installer for 32-btsparc-linux, I can tell> you want you need to do:> > I'm used to building it for my own use. I'll take a look at your> instructions for versions later than 2.6.2, since even getting 2.6.4 or> 3.0.0 available would be progress. Time permitting :-( I would also be interested in those other versions,if you succeed in building them. > > a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE,which (if you do> not have> > I've found libgdb to be a problem on several platforms, it's not> maintained actively.You are breaking my heart...I am trying to maintain the internal GDB support for FP IDE,but even if I am a member of the GDB maintainer team,this is a huge task, which I never really have time to fulfill. I have no access to any sparc machine, thus it is even moredifficult to maintain such targets.

Over the last ten years I've tried to compile FPC for 32-bit Linux SPARC, PPC and ARM on occasion. There's obviously plenty of people doing ARM now, is anybody still able to check PPC?

I'll try to get back to the point where I'm able to build SPARC for Linux and (possibly) Solaris so that there's up-to-date binaries available, but I'm afraid that I've got rather a lot of problems right now which severely impact the time I can spend on it.

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

> -----Message d'origine-----> De : fpc-pascal De la> part de Mark Morgan Lloyd> Envoyé : lundi 13 mars 2017 09:11> À : > Objet : Re: [fpc-pascal] SPARC / Linux> > On 13/03/17 06:30, Pierre Free Pascal wrote:> > Hi Mark,> > if you mean build a native installer for 32-btsparc-linux, I can tell> you want you need to do:> > I'm used to building it for my own use. I'll take a look at your> instructions for versions later than 2.6.2, since even getting 2.6.4 or> 3.0.0 available would be progress. Time permitting :-( I would also be interested in those other versions,if you succeed in building them. > > a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE,which (if you do> not have> > I've found libgdb to be a problem on several platforms, it's not> maintained actively.You are breaking my heart...I am trying to maintain the internal GDB support for FP IDE,but even if I am a member of the GDB maintainer team,this is a huge task, which I never really have time to fulfill. I have no access to any sparc machine, thus it is even moredifficult to maintain such targets.

I could probably put a SPARC system on a public address if you wanted to play with it, that's how somebody (Marco?) originally got Lazarus running. However, much of my hardware is creaking and I'm not in as good a spares position as I used to be.

Looking at systems here, I can see that I've got as far as 3.0.0 on both (32-bit) Linux and on Solaris (OpenSXCE, based on Illumos) together with Lazarus 1.6.0 in both cases. I've also been compiling 3.0.1, but that goes back more than a year.

However those are fpcsrc builds only, rather than the whole thing suitable for an ab-initio installation.

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

> -----Message d'origine-----> De : fpc-pascal De la> part de Mark Morgan Lloyd> Envoyé : lundi 13 mars 2017 09:11> À : > Objet : Re: [fpc-pascal] SPARC / Linux> > On 13/03/17 06:30, Pierre Free Pascal wrote:> > Hi Mark,> > if you mean build a native installer for 32-btsparc-linux, I can tell> you want you need to do:> > I'm used to building it for my own use. I'll take a look at your> instructions for versions later than 2.6.2, since even getting 2.6.4 or> 3.0.0 available would be progress. Time permitting :-( I would also be interested in those other versions,if you succeed in building them. > > a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE,which (if you do> not have> > I've found libgdb to be a problem on several platforms, it's not> maintained actively.You are breaking my heart...I am trying to maintain the internal GDB support for FP IDE,but even if I am a member of the GDB maintainer team,this is a huge task, which I never really have time to fulfill. I have no access to any sparc machine, thus it is even moredifficult to maintain such targets.

Appears that 3.0.2 builds on SPARC Linux with GDB607. I'm continuing to work on various combinations when time permits.

Pierre Free Pascal wrote

> -----Message d'origine-----> De : fpc-pascal De la> part de Mark Morgan Lloyd> Envoyé : lundi 13 mars 2017 09:11> À : > Objet : Re: [fpc-pascal] SPARC / Linux> > On 13/03/17 06:30, Pierre Free Pascal wrote:> > Hi Mark,> > if you mean build a native installer for 32-btsparc-linux, I can tell> you want you need to do:> > I'm used to building it for my own use. I'll take a look at your> instructions for versions later than 2.6.2, since even getting 2.6.4 or> 3.0.0 available would be progress. Time permitting :-( I would also be interested in those other versions,if you succeed in building them. > > a libgdb installation to enable GDB inside FP IDE,which (if you do> not have> > I've found libgdb to be a problem on several platforms, it's not> maintained actively.You are breaking my heart...I am trying to maintain the internal GDB support for FP IDE,but even if I am a member of the GDB maintainer team,this is a huge task, which I never really have time to fulfill. I have no access to any sparc machine, thus it is even moredifficult to maintain such targets.

For both SPARC/Linux and SPARC/Solaris I'm able to build the fpcsrc stuff without GDB. In both cases I can build the entire installation bundle, again without GDB.

For SPARC/Linux I can build fpcsrc with GDB_V607 which is the version of the library I've been using for many years. I've not tried this yet with SPARC/Solaris.

When I try to build the entire installation with GDB support I get

..
Linking bin/sparc-linux/fp
The installer encountered the following error:
External command
"/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/compiler/ppcsparc -Tlinux -FEbin/sparc-linux -FUunits/sparc-linux/
-Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/rtl/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/rtl-extra/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/fv/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/rtl-console/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/chm/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/fcl-xml/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/fcl-base/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/fcl-res/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/rtl-objpas/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/iconvenc/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/regexpr/units/sparc-linux/ -Fu/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/packages/gdbint/units/sparc-linux/ -Ficompiler -Fl -Ur -Xs -O2 -n -dRELEASE -Ur -dNOCATCH -dBrowserCol -dGDB -dsparc -Fu../compiler -Fu../compiler/sparc -Fu../compiler/targets -Fu../compiler/systems -Fi../compiler/sparc -Fi../compiler -Sg -Fl../libgdb/linux/sparc/ -Xd -viq fp.pas" failed with exit code 256. Console output:
Target OS: Linux for SPARC
Compiling fp.pas
..
Writing Resource String Table file: fp.rsj
Assembling fp
Linking bin/sparc-linux/fp
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc
fp.pas(582) Error: Error while linking
fp.pas(582) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping Fatal: Compilation aborted

make[3]: *** [all] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc/ide' make[2]: *** [ide_all] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc' make[1]: *** [build-stamp.sparc-linux] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/fpc/fpcbuild-3.0.2/fpcsrc' make: *** [fpcsrc/build-stamp.sparc-linux] Error 2

I also tried

GDB_V607=1 install/makepack

Unless anybody (Martin?) has any suggestions, I propose to focus on building SPARC/Linux and SPARC/Solaris installation bundles without- for the moment at least- GDB, in the interest of making something available as quickly as possible.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

On 13/03/17 09:00, Pierre Free Pascal wrote:

.
.

Check where gcc.a is located and try to find out (by checking the passed options / directories), why it is found when building fpcsrc but not when doing the whole package? Possibly pass the respective -Fl to the build process explicitly (depending on the used options, fpcsrc building might use a reference in fpc.cfg)?

Tomas

If you need the IDE, you may try compiling FPC trunk, which no longer needs libgdb under Linux, since it now supports GDB/MI.

Nikolay