[PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Gilbert Coville]

Hi All,

I am interested in the old National Semiconductor ns32k architecture and
saw that ns32k has been moved into the obsolete list in binutils-2.28.
"Support will be REMOVED in the next major release of BINUTILS, unless a
maintainer comes forward."

I'd like that to not happen.

Although the support for ns32k is not perfect, there's a lot of good
stuff there that I don't want to see removed.  I'm stepping up to keep
it alive.  My hope is to eventually improve ns32k support and fix some
of the bugs and deficiencies I've seen using it so far.

I think an important first step is to remove it from the disabled list.

I'm looking forward to any comments and suggestions you have for me.

Gilbert

---
 bfd/ChangeLog  | 4 ++++
 bfd/config.bfd | 1 -
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/bfd/ChangeLog b/bfd/ChangeLog
index 0e4ad30158..04157aac4d 100644
--- a/bfd/ChangeLog
+++ b/bfd/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2017-04-05  Gilbert Coville  <gcoville@gc.org>
+ 
+ 	config.bfd: Resurrect ns32k
+ 
 2017-04-05  Alan Modra  <amodra@gmail.com>
 
 	* elf64-ppc.c (ppc64_elf_gc_sweep_hook): Support ELFv2 PLT
diff --git a/bfd/config.bfd b/bfd/config.bfd
index b00958da43..151de95144 100644
--- a/bfd/config.bfd
+++ b/bfd/config.bfd
@@ -100,7 +100,6 @@ case $targ in
  mips*-sgi-* | mips*-*-bsd* | \
  mips*-*-lnews* | \
  mips*-*-sysv* | mips*-*-riscos* | \
- ns32k-*-* | \
  sh*-*-symbianelf* | \
  sparclet-*-aout* | \
  sparc86x-*-aout* | \
-- 
2.12.2

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Gilbert,

> I am interested in the old National Semiconductor ns32k architecture and
> saw that ns32k has been moved into the obsolete list in binutils-2.28.
> "Support will be REMOVED in the next major release of BINUTILS, unless a
> maintainer comes forward."
> 
> I'd like that to not happen.
> 
> Although the support for ns32k is not perfect, there's a lot of good
> stuff there that I don't want to see removed.  I'm stepping up to keep
> it alive.  My hope is to eventually improve ns32k support and fix some
> of the bugs and deficiencies I've seen using it so far.
> 
> I think an important first step is to remove it from the disabled list.
> 
> I'm looking forward to any comments and suggestions you have for me.

Are you also offering to be a maintainer for this target ?

Which versions are you interested in preserving - the netbsd/openbsd version
and/or the mach-o version ?

Cheers
  Nick

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Gilbert Coville]

On Apr 7, 2017, at 4:53 AM, Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> Are you also offering to be a maintainer for this target ?

I may need a bit of coaching, but yes, I’m offering to be the maintainer for all
things ns32k.

> Which versions are you interested in preserving - the netbsd/openbsd version
> and/or the mach-o version ?

I have more experience with the netbsd configuration, but I would like to preserve
mach-o as well.

Thanks,
Gilbert

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Gilbert,

>> Are you also offering to be a maintainer for this target ?
> 
> I may need a bit of coaching, but yes, I’m offering to be the maintainer for all
> things ns32k.

Very well - in which case I have checked in your patch, and removed the ns32k from
the obsolete list.

As a first step I would suggest building a ns32k targetted set of binutils from the
current sources and then running the gas, binutils and ld testsuites.  There are a
few unexpected failures which would be good to investigate and then generate patches
to fix if possible, or mark the tests as expected failures if not possible.

Cheers
  Nick

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Gilbert Coville]

On Apr 10, 2017, at 3:37 AM, Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> Very well - in which case I have checked in your patch, and removed the ns32k from
> the obsolete list.
> 
> As a first step I would suggest building a ns32k targetted set of binutils from the
> current sources and then running the gas, binutils and ld testsuites.  There are a
> few unexpected failures which would be good to investigate and then generate patches
> to fix if possible, or mark the tests as expected failures if not possible.

Thanks.  Yes, that sounds like a great place to start.  I’ll take a look.

Gilbert

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Jeff Law]

On 04/10/2017 11:09 AM, Gilbert Coville wrote:
> On Apr 10, 2017, at 3:37 AM, Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> Very well - in which case I have checked in your patch, and removed the ns32k from
>> the obsolete list.
>>
>> As a first step I would suggest building a ns32k targetted set of binutils from the
>> current sources and then running the gas, binutils and ld testsuites.  There are a
>> few unexpected failures which would be good to investigate and then generate patches
>> to fix if possible, or mark the tests as expected failures if not possible.
>
> Thanks.  Yes, that sounds like a great place to start.  I’ll take a look.
Are you planning to resurrect the ns32k for GCC as well?

jeff

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Gilbert Coville]

On Apr 10, 2017, at 11:41 AM, Jeff Law <law@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> Are you planning to resurrect the ns32k for GCC as well?

I’m not sure yet.  I would love to have gcc working for ns32k, but
it appears that almost all traces of it have been removed from gcc
now, so that’s going to be a much larger effort.

One step at a time.

Gilbert

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Tristan Gingold]

On 07/04/2017 19:38, Gilbert Coville wrote:
> On Apr 7, 2017, at 4:53 AM, Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> Are you also offering to be a maintainer for this target ?
>
> I may need a bit of coaching, but yes, I’m offering to be the maintainer for all
> things ns32k.
>
>> Which versions are you interested in preserving - the netbsd/openbsd version
>> and/or the mach-o version ?
>
> I have more experience with the netbsd configuration, but I would like to preserve
> mach-o as well.

Is there a good reason to preserve ns32k-macho ?  I am pretty sure this 
target is very incomplete (only bfd, no gas, no ld), completely rotten 
and useless.

Tristan (as mach-o maintainer).

Re: [PATCH] Resurrect ns32k

[Gilbert Coville]

> On Apr 18, 2017, at 2:24 AM, Tristan Gingold <gingold@adacore.com> wrote:
> 
> On 07/04/2017 19:38, Gilbert Coville wrote:
>> On Apr 7, 2017, at 4:53 AM, Nick Clifton <nickc@redhat.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Are you also offering to be a maintainer for this target ?
>> 
>> I may need a bit of coaching, but yes, I’m offering to be the maintainer for all
>> things ns32k.
>> 
>>> Which versions are you interested in preserving - the netbsd/openbsd version
>>> and/or the mach-o version ?
>> 
>> I have more experience with the netbsd configuration, but I would like to preserve
>> mach-o as well.
> 
> Is there a good reason to preserve ns32k-macho ?  I am pretty sure this target is very incomplete (only bfd, no gas, no ld), completely rotten and useless.

I’m not sure.  Someone at some point went to the effort to start the ns32k mach-o work.  I’ll try to figure out if there was any benefit to it and either fix what’s there and enhance it, or remove it altogether.

Gilbert