Re: [PATCH 0/2] binutils-gdb: Remove Itanium (IA-64) architecture

[Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@web.de>]

Hi there,

On 08.05.24 11:29, Tiezhu Yang wrote:
> The Itanium architecture is obsolete, the IA-64 port has been removed
> from the upstream Linux kernel, this series attempts to remove it in
> binutils-gdb.git.
>
> Please let me know whether it is time to do this work, any comments
> will be much appreciated.

from our point of view it is not yet time for it as ia64 is neither
obsolete nor broken. You might not be aware, but we are since a while
working on getting ia64 back into the Linux kernel and it is
successfully maintained out of tree since nearly 3 mainline releases
now. You can read up on our progress on [1] and [2] and after the
release message for v6.9 on the LKML.

[1]:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/fe5f6e9b-02a2-42e9-8151-ae4b6fdba7e3@web.de/

[2]:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/145da253-b3bc-43da-a262-a3ebdfbea5a2@web.de/

The HP Sim platform was also restored in the meantime, so people can
test ia64 software on e.g. x86_64, up to mainline. See the Linux stable
release (candidate) builds on [3] for example, all still maintained
stable kernels work in Ski with HP Sim as platform.

[3]: https://github.com/linux-ia64/linux-stable-rc/actions/runs/8995653713

Each mainline release (candidate) was/is also regularly cross-compiled
with binutils 2.41/2.42 (since a while) and the latest gcc-14 (now
gcc-15) snapshot since beginning of the year. The result was/is tested
on the following real machines:

* rx2620 (w/Montecito)
* rx4640 (w/Madison)
* rx2660 (w/Montecito)
* rx6600 (w/Montvale)
* rx2800 i2 (w/Tukwila)

...and of course also in Ski with the HP Sim platform. All that w/o any
showstopping issues related to binutils or gcc. For the gcc
cross-compiler LRA was also enabled recently, also w/o any negative
effect on the resulting kernels.

****

So is there something broken in binutils for ia64 that we don't know of
maybe?

Cheers,
Frank