PS3 - return to custom flavour or stick with powerpc64-smp?

[Ben Collins]

On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 13:19 +0100, Dan Munckton wrote:
> Hi Kernel Team
> 
> The powerpc64-smp multi-platform kernel doesn't work out of the box on
> PlayStation 3 despite merging of the cell patches into 2.6.24 upstream.
> 
> I now know we're definitely going to need to change certain config
> options and apply patches that are either specific to the PS3 or direct
> from cell/PS3 kernel team (Geoff Levand et al) [0].
> 
> IMO it looks like we'd be better going back to a custom kernel flavour
> especially for PS3. That way we avoid potentially upsetting the
> stability of the other powerpc kernels and it would allow us some
> freedom to optimise for our specialised environment.
> 
> It may be possible in future to return to the power64-smp kernel, I
> don't know yet, I've asked Geoff for his opinion on it [1].
> 
> So -->
> 
> * Does anyone have any objections or opinions on this?

For hardy, this is pretty much not an option.

> * What are the knock-on effects on general Ubuntu kernel maintenance?
> 
> * The current plan [2] is to try and get an installable Hardy on PS3 for
> 8.04.1. I'm sure I can put together the custom flavour in time but would
> it be accepted or are we going to have to focus on the Ibex?

For now, I'd concentrate on intrepid. PowerPC is an unmaintained port in
hardy, so post-release updates are not going to get priority, and in
most cases wont be accepted.

> * Would any of the current custom flavour maintainers (lpia, openvz, rt,
> xen) be prepared to share their experiences of the
> benefits/disadvantages/gotchas of this approach?

I would rather not take on custom flavours for this. If there are bugs
preventing the multi-arch powerpc64-smp kernel from working (which it
was in gutsy), then those should be fixed.

> * What are the knock-on affects of this on other packages. E.g. I
> presume the linux-cell meta-packages would need to be changed, possibly
> the installer, most probably the ps3 CD build scripts (wherever they
> are?).

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