linux-kernel - Re: Linux 6.14

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Message-ID: <0855440c-8448-4e56-858c-49d0d2adca34@web.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2025 22:18:01 +0200
From: Frank Scheiner <frank.scheiner@....de>
To: torvalds@...ux-foundation.org
Cc: Tomáš Glozar <tglozar@...il.com>,
 Sergei Trofimovich <slyich@...il.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 Linux-Arch <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>, linux-ia64@...r.kernel.org,
 t2@...de.org
Subject: Re: Linux 6.14

Dear all,

here comes the update on Linux/ia64, unfortunately a little later than
usual. This one is for v6.14, but as we're already in the midst of the
merge window for v6.15 I can report on the progress there, too.

So, IIRC the merge window for v6.14 required a really low effort, much
less involvement than the one for v6.13. Still I didn't manage to extend
testing also to on-disk installations during the v6.14 cycle. But a new
hardware "target" could be made available for testing - a BL860c blade
server. A description of the process still needs to be done so others
can repeat it, it's not that hard to accomplish. So this makes six real
machines and one simulated machine avilable for regular testing:

* rx2620
* rx4640
* rx2660
* BL860c
* rx6600
* rx2800 i2
* Ski/hp-sim

You'll find more details about these here (incl. boot logs):

http://epic-linux.org/#!/machines/

But also other vendors once made ia64 machines. Some really cool ones
were the Altixen from SGI and there has been a real progress in bringing
Linux support closer to newer kernels for these just recently. To the
best of my knowledge, this has never worked with anything newer than
3.x.y in the past. Well, guess what, running a numalinked 32-processor
Altix 3700 or a smaller numalinked Altix 350 is now possible with
4.19.325. Later kernels still make problems, but 4.19.325 is a good
resting point as CIP ([1]) still supports 4.19.x.

[1]: https://www.cip-project.org/

****

But as real hardware is still hard to get and quite expensive unless
you're lucky, a focus has been put on Ski, the only ready-to-use closest
thing to a real ia64 machine that's available for free right now. As it
is still something not that well-known, an overview and outlook article
has been created for it, partly the reason why this update is so late
:-). If you're interested in working with ia64 "machines" w/o much
investment, Ski is currently the way to go. Have a look here for a
start:

http://epic-linux.org/#!articles/ski-the-undiscovered-country.md

****

So the merge window for v6.15 looks good so far, despite being a more
involved one, as can be seen by the number of failed runs for the Linux
mainline autobuilder ([2]). First manual kernel builds were done based
on [3] with binutils 2.42 and GCC 15-20250330 and have been
boot-to-login tested on all available hardware. The HP Sim patch set
will require an update though. More extensive testing was done on the
rx2800 i2 with building new packages for EPIC Slack for a few hours,
that also went well.

[2]: https://github.com/johnny-mnemonic/linux-mainline-autobuilds/actions

[3]: https://github.com/johnny-mnemonic/linux-ia64/commit/4e82c87058f45e79eeaa4d5bcc3b38dd3dce7209

****

Find the last Linux/ia64 update on [4].

[4]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/53e3e309-4d66-40fe-9d47-dac6a61461d0@web.de/

****

Thank you all for your hard work on Linux!

Cheers,
Frank et al