Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:
> I saw the changes to s_lock.h, but I couldn't at first sight see how to
> alter 7.4.1 to incorporate them, because they coincided with a file
> reorganisation.
That's right. The change depends on Bruce's reorganization of the
spinlock configuration mechanism, which we agreed not to apply to 7.4
because of the risk of breaking things (we were already well into the
7.4 beta test cycle at that time). We are not going to revisit that
decision at this point --- it's not reasonable to risk breaking other
platforms to add one more supported platform in a stable branch. The
reorganization has to go through a port testing cycle before it can be
considered suitable for a production release.
> My object is to get 7.4.1 working on all the Debian architectures.
I'd have been more willing to buy into that goal if you'd been working
on it during the 7.4 beta test cycle. I gather from what you are saying
that you couldn't, because Debian provides essentially no infrastructure
for testing package portability in advance of official releases. That
seems like a rather serious misjudgement on their part ... maybe you
could lobby to get it corrected?
I think it might be possible to develop a localized patch for 7.4 that
only affects linux-hppa and doesn't risk breaking anything else: copy
the slock_t definition for hppa from hpux.h into linux.h and add the
inline'd version of hppa tas() from CVS tip into s_lock.h. But I'm not
particularly interested in working on it at two removes from where any
testing could get done.
regards, tom lane