Linux on VAX

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

Hi Jan,

> It's been a few years since my last e-mail regarding Linux on VAX
> port. I am interested if there has been any progress made since the
> year 2016? I guess the project website is offline currently?

 I can't comment on the web site and will defer that to Jan-Benedict.

 Myself I've been distracted by various life disturbances and regrettably 
I haven't dedicated enough time to make this project move forward.  Right 
now we're facing two immediate issues:

1. To get anywhere we need to define a TLS ABI and have it implemented in 
   GCC and glibc.

2. We need to make sure GCC is maintained so that support for the VAX port 
   isn't dropped.

 Fortunately #2 has been largely taken care of by NetBSD people and 
someone is currently working on moving from CC0 to MODE_CC, which has 
recently been decided a prerequisite for any port to be retained upstream.  
The next issue is moving from reload to LRA, but that is not imminent.  
I'm sure our assistance would be welcome here, but our port has never 
reached the stability required for the GCC test suite to produce stable 
results, which in turn is required for port verification.

 As to #1 I'll have to find some time to outline a draft spec covering 
relocations and code sequences we could start working from.  As much as 
I'd love to I can't promise any timeline for that though, especially as 
technology seems to work against me and half of the stuff I used to rely 
on doesn't work on my new development laptop and seems to require more and 
more effort to get fixed.

 Sorry to sound disappointing.  Let me know if you have any questions or 
comments.

  Maciej