Re: Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) SMP build support

Hello Kurt,

On Tue, 2025-02-25 at 02:49 +0000, Kurt Stine wrote:
> What would it take to have a debian build for the Espresso (Nintendo Wii U) CPU?
> 
> Currently, due to overall Espresso weirdness, both GCC and glibc need to be patched
> for any applications to take advantage of all three cores. This means very application
> and library needs to be patched to be able to support smp on the Wii U. Debian powerpc
> will currently run on the Wii U, but due to the lack of patches, you are stuck with only
> a single core, and performance is extremely hampered by that. Adelie Linux currently
> has support for the Wii U, but it would be great to have a debian build.

I think it would be more reasonable to work on the kernel and glibc such that rebuilding
all packages with a patched compiler should not be necessary. Given the very low user
base, I don't think it would be justified to bootstrap a completely new Debian port
for the Wii U.

> The Wii U has three cores and 2GB of RAM, so it's relatively powerful machine for the
> price (you can find them for around $25 online). I'm also able to provide access to
> multiple if needed.

The hardware isn't really the issue but the amount of work needed to maintain such a
port. Such an endeavor would only be justified if the number of users is high enough.

> The smp patches are available here: https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/smp-patches

Wouldn't it be possible to upstream these? And do we really need to rebuild all packages
to make use of all cores of the Wii U CPU?

> Currently, there is not a patch for LLVM, so any applications that are built with clang
> will not run on an smp-patched build.
> 
> Any input is appreciated!

If there is really no way other than rebuilding all packages, I would suggest using a
source-based distribution such as Gentoo.

Adrian

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