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Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] i486 vserver kernel?
From: Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
To: Jon Clausen <alpine@ymmv.dk>
Cc: alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
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Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:10:43 +0200
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On Mon, 2010-10-04 at 13:02 +0200, Jon Clausen wrote: 
> Hi
> 
> I have these old, underpowered, resource starved singleboard machines.
> (VIA Samuel 2 CPU, 512 MB RAM)
> 
> I'd like to extend their life a little longer, and one way of doing that
> would be using them for 'pet projects'. 'vserver' seems a likely way of
> getting the most out of the hardware, except that the CPU doesn't support
> instructions that the i686 kernel needs (CMOV)
> 
> I managed to get a proof of concept system running by recompiling a vserver
> kernel configured for i486, but...
> 
> 1: An 'official' i486 build would be much nicer (and easier for me ;)

hum. I think there was a reason switch to i586, but i dont remember what
it was. I wonder if it was related to better virtualization guest
support or something.

I think it would be nice to support this kind of old hardware so I'm
switching to i486 for linux-vserver til someone comes with some good
reasons to switch back to i586.

Please try the linux-vserver kernel in edge.

> 2: If for some reason 1: isn't feasible, what are the steps to set up a
> (semi-)automated buildsystem?
> I guess it would entail something on the order of
> * getting notified when there's a new kernel version
> * syncronizing the sources
> * generating a new 'i486 .config'
> * compile/package
> 
> Hints much appreciated :)

This should not be too hard for you to set up either.

>From the top of my head, something like:

Do a git clone

cd main/linux-vserver

abuild unpack prepare installdeps
cd src/build && make menuconfig
# select i486 processor.
# save and exit kernel config

copy .config to ../../kernelconfig.x86

cd ../../
abuild checksum

now you have your modified kernel config. You can now git commit this
change.

To keep it up-to-date, simply do git pull --rebase and rebuild when the
upstram changes.

I dont really have good ideas when it comes to notifications. I suppose
you could do the git pull --rebase from a cronjob and check if the
linux-vserver/APKBUILD has changed or similar.

You can also copy the the linux-vserver to a separate package,
linux-vserver-i486 or similar. I have a script that bump package
versions so update to new version is just a question of 'abump
package-<newversion>'


-nc



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