This project, unfortunately, has been stalled for some time. The goal of the project, is to create a port of Slackware Linux that runs on systems with Alpha processors. It would not be enough to have a "Slackware-like" system. What is intended here is a system that is Slackware, but runs on an Alpha.
Work has been focused primarily on working with the Slackware-10.0 build scripts to compile the software on a DEC AlphaServer-2100. It is intended that future versions of Slackware will be tracked as closely as possible, so that the Alpha port will be able to keep up.
The first major milestone has finally been reached: as of 2005/04/30, 00:04:35, my development system is running a self-hosting installation of Slackware-10.0, and it's really comforting to finally be working on a system that's familiar! I should certainly acknowledge, and even tip my hat to two projects, in addition to Slackware itself, that have been very instrumental in my being able to achieve this:
Another major milestone reached in the early morning of May 4, 2005: The Glibc package is finally built such that packages which link against libm link correctly and without errors. This has been a major stumbling block all along, and I expect that I would have achieved a self-hosting system sooner if I had resolved this first. Live and learn!
The build scripts are likely to undergo further modifications at this point, as I continue to work towards first getting things working as completely as possible, then towards getting the same functionality with the absolute minimal change I can make to the stock Slackware build scripts. I'm also creating some additional patches that are intended to make the least change possible to get packages compiled and working on Alpha. Note, however, that some of the older patches were created to compile packages with a newer version of Gcc than what is included in Slackware, and the packages may compile on the current system without them, but I expect that they'll ultimately be needed anyway, so I'm keeping them at this time.
The ultimate goal is also to be able to upgrade to newer versions of Slackware very quickly ("ASAP") after they have been released. It would even be particularly nice if I could streamline this (or perhaps with cooperation and acceptance of changes to the "SlackBuild" scripts that I intend to submit for future versions) to the point where producing the "next" version will always be a matter of looping through the list of build scripts, at which point I'll be able to let the computer do all the work. :-)
An attempt has been made to get in touch with the folks at Slackware, though no response has been received at the time of this writing. Further attempts will be made, at intervals, before I go ahead and make this project publically known, as I would consider it ideal to have this become an official Slackware port.
Feel free to have a look at what I've done so far. Packages from a few subsets were attempted on the original host system, and those that built successfully were valuable both for my own experience, and to provide me with a suitable development platform. I expect to continue to make fairly rapid progress at this point, with new packages being completed on a regular basis. See the completed packages for details.
It's expected that most of the problems listed here will be resolved in later iterations of development. For the moment, anything that isn't strictly required to create a self-hosting system on which development can be done is simply being listed here, with its reason for failing, (often packages not installed or unsuitably configured on my current development system; both situations that will be easy enough to address once a self-hosting system has been achieved) for further review.
This list is current as of Sunday, 12-Jun-2005 17:20:08 ADT.
... make -C wavefront modules make[2]: Entering directory `/mnt/alsa-driver-1.0.5a/isa/wavefront' ... gcc -D__KERNEL__ -DMODULE=1 -I/mnt/alsa-driver-1.0.5a/include -I/usr/src/linux/include -O2 -mno-fp-regs -ffixed-8 -mcpu=ev4 -Wa,-mev6 -DLINUX -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fomit-frame-pointer -Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -pipe -DALSA_BUILD -nostdinc -iwithprefix include -DKBUILD_BASENAME=gus_reset -c -o gus_reset.o gus_reset.c wavefront_synth.c:10: warning: `errno' defined but not used make[2]: *** [wavefront_synth.o] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/mnt/alsa-driver-1.0.5a/isa/wavefront' make[1]: *** [_modsubdir_wavefront] Error 2 make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs.... ... make[1]: Leaving directory `/mnt/alsa-driver-1.0.5a/isa' make: *** [compile] Error 1
Builds fine, but then attempts to install within development system, rather than below $PKG. Need to modify Makefile(s) to recognize DESTDIR ...
... checking for GTK - version >= 1.2.0... no^M *** The gtk-config script installed by GTK could not be found *** If GTK was installed in PREFIX, make sure PREFIX/bin is in *** your path, or set the GTK_CONFIG environment variable to the *** full path to gtk-config. ...
Missing some build tools, such as imake and gccmakedep, (both found in the X11 package, not yet installed on the development system) but otherwise seems ok. The package at least partially builds at the moment.
if [ / = "/" ]; then \ cp termcap.src /mnt/package-libtermcap/etc/termcap; \ chown bin.bin /mnt/package-libtermcap/etc/termcap; \ fi cp: cannot stat `termcap.src': No such file or directory chown: cannot access `/mnt/package-libtermcap/etc/termcap': No such file or directory make: [install-data] Error 1 (ignored)
checking for Ogg... no *** Could not run Ogg test program, checking why... *** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the *** exact error that occured. This usually means Ogg was incorrectly installed *** or that you have moved Ogg since it was installed. In the latter case, you *** may want to edit the ogg-config script: configure: error: must have Ogg installed!
tifftopnm.c:63:20: tiffio.h: No such file or directory
alpha-slackware-linux-gcc -shared connection.lo encoders.lo giop-msg-buffer.lo iiop-endian.lo hosts_access.lo options.lo shell_cmd.lo rfc931.lo eval.lo hosts_ctl.lo refuse.lo percent_x.lo clean_exit.lo weak_symbols.lo fromhost.lo fix_options.lo socket.lo tli.lo workarounds.lo update.lo misc.lo diag.lo percent_m.lo myvsyslog.lo -lnsl -Wl,-soname -Wl,libIIOP.so.0 -o .libs/libIIOP.so.0.5.17 weak_symbols.lo(.sdata+0x0): multiple definition of `deny_severity' connection.lo(.sdata+0x4): first defined here weak_symbols.lo(.sdata+0x4): multiple definition of `allow_severity' connection.lo(.sdata+0x0): first defined here collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[3]: *** [libIIOP.la] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/mnt/ORBit-0.5.17/src/IIOP' make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/mnt/ORBit-0.5.17/src' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/mnt/ORBit-0.5.17' make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2
Usage: strip
/usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../../alpha-slackware-linux/bin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../libm.a(halfulp.o): gp-relative relocation against dynamic symbol tab54 /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../../alpha-slackware-linux/bin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../libm.a(halfulp.o): gp-relative relocation against dynamic symbol tab54 collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
ps2pdf -dOptimize=true nasmdoc.ps nasmdoc.pdf make: ps2pdf: Command not found make: *** [nasmdoc.pdf] Error 127
./configure ... checking for kernel OProfile support... no configure: error: no suitably configured kernel include tree found make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop. make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.
... cc -O -g -DSYSV -DSVR4 -I../include -c -o memmove.o memmove.c memmove.c: In function `memmove': memmove.c:28: error: argument "t" doesn't match prototype cc1: error: prototype declaration memmove.c:28: error: argument "f" doesn't match prototype cc1: error: prototype declaration memmove.c:28: error: argument "n" doesn't match prototype cc1: error: prototype declaration make[2]: *** [memmove.o] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/mnt/pmake/lib/sprite' make[1]: *** [all] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/mnt/pmake/lib/sprite' make: *** [lib/sprite/libsprite.a] Error 2
... ar cr libpython2.3.a Modules/threadmodule.o Modules/signalmodule.o Modules/posixmodule.o Modules/errnomodule.o Modules/_sre.o Modules/_codecsmodule.o Modules/zipimport.o Modules/symtablemodule.o Modules/xxsubtype.o ranlib libpython2.3.a /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../../alpha-slackware-linux/bin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../libm.a(halfulp.o): gp-relative relocation against dynamic symbol tab54 /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../../alpha-slackware-linux/bin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/alpha-slackware-linux/3.4.1/../../../libm.a(halfulp.o): gp-relative relocation against dynamic symbol tab54 collect2: ld returned 1 exit status ln: accessing `libpython2.3.so.1.0': No such file or directory make: *** [libpython2.3.so] Error 1
SDL links against alsa-lib, arts, audiofile, esound, and the X11 libraries, not all of which are currently available on my development system.
- while building netkit-ntalk-0.11: make[1]: Entering directory `/mnt/netkit-ntalk-0.11/talkd' ... gcc -pipe -O2 -Wall -W -Wpointer-arith -Wbad-function-cast -Wcast-qual -Wstrict- prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Winline -Wcast-align -DGNU_LIBC -D_GNU_SOURCE -I../include announce.c -c announce.c: In function `print_mesg': announce.c:106: warning: implicit declaration of function `localtime' announce.c:106: warning: nested extern declaration of `localtime' announce.c:106: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast announce.c:113: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type announce.c:113: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type make[1]: *** [announce.o] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/mnt/netkit-ntalk-0.11/talkd' - the rest of the package builds without trouble;