Linux on VAX

[David Brownlee]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 at 13:03, Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf at suse.de> wrote:
>
> * Maciej W. Rozycki <macro at linux-mips.org> [Oct 23. 2019 23:04]:
>
> > 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.
>
> I volunteered some years ago and I volunteer again: Having ported the
> GNU compiler toolchain to VMS/AXP, I believe to have some experience
> maintaining this code ;-)
>
> Can you point me to a (github?) repo where this code is hosted ?

The current state of gcc VAX could be best described as "fragile". gcc
5 could usually cross compile a runnable NetBSD system (with a few
files tagged as -O2), though the native compiler generally had big
issues compiling anything non trivial (aside from gcc's ever
increasing memory usage). Things are gently trending downwards with
gcc 6 and 7, though there are some people poking at it to try to
resolve the issues. ( eg
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2019/09/20/msg003360.html )

If you're purely interested in hacking on VAX gcc then NetBSD would be
a great place to pitch in to help get stabilize recent gcc versions -
fighting compiler issues is going to make getting Linux running again
on VAX an extra shade of nightmare! :(

The NetBSD source tree defaults to crossbuilding - you should be able
to crossbuild from any sane Linux box, then boot in simh for a quick
sanity test

David