[lsb-discuss] architecture coverage

Wichmann, Mats D mats.d.wichmann at intel.com
Thu Apr 23 20:27:08 PDT 2009


Dennis Gilmore wrote:
> I wanted to bring up an issue i'm starting to see more and more at
> least in Fedora.  there are some apps depending on lsb functions/bits
> etc.  however 
> the coverage of arches that lsb officially supports is very limited. 
> so some of the secondary arches fedora is adding  can not resolve
> these deps. 
> 
> repoquery --whatrequires redhat-lsb
> tog-pegasus-2:2.7.2-7.fc11.x86_64
> bcfg2-server-0:0.9.6-3.fc11.noarch
> tog-pegasus-2:2.7.2-7.fc11.i586
> 
> 
> I personally noticed it when trying to install bcfg2-server on one of
> my sparc linux boxes.  I think that lsb should say that when there is
> no specific standard for an arch that the generic interfaces makes up
> the lsb standard for those arches.   right now we have arm, alpha,
> and  sparc that are not covered but we expect that we will also have
> hppa, mips and mipsel support at some time.   the Red Hat lsb
> maintainer will not add support for non-sanctioned arches as he feels
> that it will break lsb compliance.   I'm not sure if the generic
> specs were intended to cover all arches or if its never been a
> consideration.  I feel that it needs to be clarified. 
> 
> judging by http://packages.debian.org/lenny/lsb-core  debian has just
> gone ahead and added the extra arches.


It's sure not intended to stop anyone from doing anything with
any architecture just because nobody's been willing to spend the
time and effort to add it to LSB and maintain it.  I can say
the seven already in are plenty of work by themselves, the
testing matrix for a new LSB release is quite significant.

I'm not sure I quite get what the issue referenced above actually
is; if LSB says nothing about an arch why would not being able
to claim LSB conformance (which Fedora doesn't officially do
anyway AFAIK) be a blocker for being a Fedora arch? To me it
seems like if LSB is not available for that, then you don't
worry about it.

If the statement above would help in that regard, by all means -
for each archticture, it's fully described by the generic bits
plus the overlay of the arch-specific bits.  If there are no
arch-specific bits then you could say that is the LSB description,
but you'd also have to say it's not a complete description
(in particular, there would be no references for the ELF parts).



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