SPARC port (was Re: Technical Board decisions)

[Caroline Ford]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>> Our documentation is confused (and bug reported..)
>>     
>
> I'm not sure where you filed this or which documentation you mean, but in
> any case the documentation team would be a better place to discuss it:
> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com.
>   
It was here - https://launchpad.net/bugs/81037 - the installation guide 
on the edgy SPARC server CD. I agree this isn't the appropriate list.
>   
>> While I'm having a SPARC whinge - we need to ship an smp kernel - don't 
>> expect people to pay $$ for a server box and either only run one cpu or 
>> compile the kernel. Compiling a kernel is *very* not ubuntu in my eyes.
>>     
>
> Both 6.06 LTS and 6.10 do provide a SPARC SMP kernel.
>   
Ah - the installation guide says we don't!
>   
>> We need to ship a SPARC cd with X on. Many of the supported machines are 
>> workstations not servers. Leaving the user with the command line is A 
>> Bad Thing too.
>>     
>
> There are good reasons why SPARC is a "server-only" port for Ubuntu.  The
> desktop stack is not well supported on this platform, and furthermore very
> little is available in the way of testing.  There's much more to providing
> an ISO than creating the image; each of these need to be properly tested and
> certified before being released, and our resources are better spent
> elsewhere than on GNOME and KDE for SPARC.
>
>   
Fair point - SPARC on the desktop will have even less users than 
PowerPC... Rather nice machines though imo - and old ones are pretty 
cheap now.

Caroline