Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 20:14:37 +0100 To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com, debian-devel AT lists DOT debian DOT org Subject: Compiling Debian packages for DJGPP ? Message-ID: <20030205191437.GA19182@sprite.fr.eu.org> Mail-Followup-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com, debian-devel AT lists DOT debian DOT org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i From: Jeremie Koenig Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Hello DJGPP workers, hello Debian Developers. I'm neither a DJGPP nor a Debian developer. Just a Free Software addict that enjoy reading Debian MLs and hope he'll help someday. This is crossposted to debian-devel and djgpp-workers. Sorry if i'm annoying anyone there. I'm planning to try compiling some Debian packages for FreeDOS, using DJGPP. I too shy to use the word "debian port", but that's the idea ;). I've crossposted this to the djgpp-workers and debian-devel mailing lists, to know what you all nice poeple think about this, and to know what level of assistance (compassion?) I can expect from you. Short summary for the few around that understand only the half of what i say ;) DJGPP is a DOS port of gcc, featuring a libc granting a reasonable API compatibility to programs from the *nix world (especially GNU software) (correct me if i am wrong). Debian is known as a GNU/Linux distribution, but is not tied to this particular kernel, since it has been also ported to the Hurd, and other projects exist (*BSD, win32, darwin, ...). The debian-djgpp idea sounds odd, granted. I'm a bit crazy sometimes. However i really think there could be interests : 1. The result. This is not the most important, but it could be funny. It could even be useful. Think of the great quantity of software that would be made easily runnable on FreeDOS. For old hardware or embedded things, this could be useful. 2. This would give you, DJGPP folks, a feedback on how able DJGPP is to compile a ton of software originally written for *nix. Working together we could extend the compatibility even more. 3. This would give you, debian developers, and your upstreams an idea of how well their software compiles and run on one more architecture. IMHO extending Debian to more and more different free kernels is very important. It creates more links and relationship between different groups of the Free Software users/developers. The idea of removing even more bindings between the available software and the OS used is quite pleasant. Even porting Debian to proprietary OSes cans have an interest : it may make poeple discover the FS. (i'm thinking of the debian-w32 project.) Thanks for having read so far. I'd greatly appreciate positive or negative comments about all this stuff from you all. -- Jeremie Koenig