On  1 Oct, Erik E. Fair wrote:

In relation to ports...

> The depth of our binary distribution problem depends on how optimized we
> want to be. As a first cut, we need binaries for:
> 
> 	68000
> 	sparc
> 	mips
> 	alpha
> 	i386
> 	ARM
> 	ns32532
> 	(and some that I've forgotten)
> 
> but life gets more interesting when one considers more processor specific
> code generation, e.g. 68020? 68030? 68040? 68060? v7 sparc? v8 sparc? 386?
> 486? Pentium? Pentium Pro? Pentium II?
> 
> Sounds like we need a new post: port-package-master (someone for each port
> to build the packages)
> 
> It gives us an interesting M x N problem. 9GB disks are getting cheaper,
> and there is ccd...

Sounds like NetBSD would be the first group to get significant bennefit
from a working ANDF.  Has anyone considered something like a new GCC
target for something like an extended JVM or Amsterdam Compiler Kit
stack machine (or even "generic assembler: C")?  Then you'd only need
one distribution and a back-end that includes a compiler/optimiser of
sorts.  Of course this isn't going to help for things like ocaml and
kaffe, that know about a few specific architectures, but could work for
more general applications.

Can't see the point myself, when distribution by source works so well,
and you end up with the source code...

-- 
Andrew

"The steady state of disks is full."
				-- Ken Thompson