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| -rw-r--r-- | libre/linux-libre-64/PKGBUILD | 50 |
1 files changed, 50 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/libre/linux-libre-64/PKGBUILD b/libre/linux-libre-64/PKGBUILD index 689197916..f93d67f01 100644 --- a/libre/linux-libre-64/PKGBUILD +++ b/libre/linux-libre-64/PKGBUILD @@ -1,5 +1,55 @@ # Maintainers: Parabola hackers <dev@lists.parabola.nu> +# Rationale: This package enables to run 64bit kernels with 32bit rootfs. +# +# For armv7k/aarch64, we have no aarch64 port yet, and the 32bit +# kernels don't work for 64bit computers (for instance the dtb for +# 64bit computers are not shipped). +# +# In turn if we can boot Parabola on these computers, it enables +# people to work on an aarch64 port more easily as chrooting in 64bit +# rootfs from 32bit rootfs work when we have a 64bit kernel (tested on +# an x86_64 computer with a Parabola i686 rootfs and a Parabola x86_64 +# chroot). +# +# This enable to make rootfs that work on both 64bit and 32bit +# computers. In that case the user will still need to select the right +# kernel at boot. +# +# Generally speaking it also enable users to benefit from many of the +# improvements of 64bit kernels (ability to chroot in 64bit rootfs, +# better security, 4GiB address space per process instead of 3GiB for +# 32bit rootfs, etc) without having to reinstall everything. In +# addition, there was and is still no conversion guide to convert a +# 32bit Parabola installation to 64bit), and in some cases (lot of +# self-built software in /usr/local, PostgreSQL database, etc) the +# migration to 64bit requires some work. +# +# As for using i686 for new installation on x86_64 computers, it can +# enable people doing that to find and fix bugs on Parabola i686 to +# enable people with 32bit-only computers (like Libreboot compatible +# I945 Thinkpads) to still be able to use Parabola. +# +# Having both architectures (arm and x86) in the same PKGBUILD enables +# to more widely test this package (if we find issues on x86, they'll +# most likely apply to arm as well). Though it can become a problem if +# we need different kernel versions for both architectures. +# +# Status: +# - Tested on both arm and x86. +# - The build is currently broken on ARM due to a missing cross +# compiler for armv7h (it was accidentally removed and it doesn't +# build anymore). +# - External modules (like Wireguard or tp_smapi) also need to be +# cross compiled. So modules for linux-libre-64 need to be added +# (like tp_smapi-64) and dkms packages need to be adapted to also +# work for this kernel. +# - Some software (like building Guix) break with 32bit rootfs and +# 64bit kernels due to wrong assumption about the number of bits, +# through other software (like building rust with mrustc) work +# better (here because we have 3GiB instead of 3GiB of memory per +# process). Most software is not affected though. + # Based on the linux-libre package _replacesarchkernel=('linux%') # '%' gets replaced with kernel suffix |