Re: regarding build speed on riscv64

Hi Dominique,

On 2026-09-01 10:18, Dominique Belhachemi wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 6:50 AM Adrian Bunk <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 06:39:07PM -0400, Dominique Belhachemi wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 4:55 PM Aurelien Jarno <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> > >  ...
> > >
> > > In parallel, we continue to follow upstream kernel support for the K3,
> > > > with the hope we can get everything in 7.4. Currently the PCI
> > controller
> > > > [2] and the thermal management chip [3] are missing, and a few smaller
> > > > fixes that will likely go through the stable trees anyway. The bad news
> > > > is that it 7.4 is currently scheduled for January [4], so 7.3 will be
> > > > the LTS version that will go into Forky. This means we'll need to work
> > > > with the kernel team to backport the corresponding patches into 7.3.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Would it be possible for Debian to procure and distribute 10 to 20 K3
> > > boards to interested DDs?

Procuring boards for distributing them later is a complex due to tax and 
import duties, as DD are located all over the world.

> > Money in Debian is a mess, and your suggestion is somewhere around € 10k.

I agree it is a significant amount, and we have to make sure it is going 
to be well used. For sure there are DDs interested by hardware bring-up, 
but 10 to 20 DDs seems a bit high.

> > Why is it a mess? What happened?
> 
> > Having hardware available to individual maintainers for local testing and
> > > debugging would certainly help unblock and strengthen the riscv64 port.
> >
> > What problems do you plan to debug where you need physical hardware?
> >
> > Boot issues, kernel panics, timeouts, extensions, GPU bringup, 3D
> graphics, AI.

I do not think you need that for timeouts or extensions, those can be 
done on the porterbox (admittedly once upgraded).

For the other cases, if some DDs commit to work on that, I guess they 
can contact the DPL for possibly getting it funded. However IMHO, 
funding priorities should be given first to the buildd and porterboxes, 
as those will serve directly or indirectly more DDs.
 
> > Like every release architecture (and many ports architectures) riscv64
> > has a porterbox, which is usually what individual maintainers need for
> > debugging issues.
> >
> > The porterbox has limited value to us:
> isa : rv64imafdc_zicntr_zicsr_zifencei_zihpm_zca_zcd

We will update the porterbox once we get hardware supported by real 
hardware (for instance by SpacemiT K3).

Regards
Aurelien

-- 
Aurelien Jarno                          GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B
[email protected]                     http://aurel32.net