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Posts: 1,808 | Thanked: 4,272 times | Joined on Feb 2011 @ Germany
#2530
Originally Posted by sulu View Post
Since I believe* the existing Maemo kernel makes best use of the hardware, it should already be armhf compatible. No idea if that's actually necessary or if an armhf-compatible libc would suffice, but if it is necessary that shouldn't be a problem.
I don't think our kernel was compiled with hardfp, as obviously this would have implied that the whole of Maemo would have also been compiled like that.

If we somehow were to replace all packages (incl. glibc) with recompiled versions using hard-float then the kernel would have to be made aware of that (unless the kernel uses a specific, EABI-independent, calling convention for system calls, which I don't think is the case).

Well I think recompiling the whole Easy Debian software doesn't make much sense. If that's what you want to do I think Arch or Gentoo would be better distributions. Plus, recompiling every binary with armhf support would practically mean to create a new architecture on our own. I have thought about that earlier but I didn't find it practical then and I don't think so now.
Well, despite posting in this thread, I did not talk about Easy Debian itself, but debian in general. Heck, I don't even use Easy Debian, but run something similar (used debootstrap for that).

That's where the Debian's official armhf port comes in handy now. Theoretically we could start building armhf images right away. The reason why I think there will be a delay of over a year is that it doesn't make much sense to base Easy Debian on Testing or even Unstable since it's supposed to be useable for everybody, not just for Debian experts (heck, I don't even consider myself to be one). Therefore I think the Wheezy freeze is the first date that might make an armhf Easy Debian useful.
At least my plan is/was to use debootstrap to install the armhf debian port, but then if my guess about the kernel is right, it would not work under chroot, but would need its own kernel (should be no problem thanks to u-boot). But then you can forget about all the maemo things that work while in a chroot, such as making phone calls