From: Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@...>
Date: 2011-01-04T16:45:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:34050] Supported platforms (Was:  The rights of ruby-core people and Myth of ruby-dev)

Hi,

Continuing with questions :-)

Debian currently supports a lot more platforms than Ruby. Using the
Linux kernel, Debian supports Intel x86, Amd64, Intel IA-64, Sparc, Arm,
Armel, Alpha, Mips (Big Endian), Mips (Little Endian), PowerPC. Using
the Freebsd kernel and the GNU Libc, Debian supports x86 and amd64.

It is usually considered good policy for software in Debian to work on
all the architectures. In particular, that's the case for perl, python,
and Lua.

Ruby has several known problems with some architectures:
1.9.1 on sparc: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593138
and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=545345
1.9.1 on kfreebsd: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593139
1.9.1 on ia64: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593141
1.9.1 on hppa (which is no longer supported, so it's less important):
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593140

Sometimes, this is caused by bugs in the libc or the kernel. But more
often, it is caused by bugs in Ruby, especially in the threading code.
When I reported a bug about Sparc, I got the answer that Sparc is not
supported, and the bug was closed (see
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/show/1172 when redmine is back).

It would be great if that policy could be discussed. Supporting many
architectures is usually not that hard, and improves code quality also
for the main architectures.

If someone is interested in working on that, Debian maintainers could
help with providing access to machines of the various architectures to
help with debugging.

- Lucas