RE: PostgreSQL on IA-64?

Thomas,

I take it then that the answer to my original question is no =). I spoke to
a RedHat representative last week about the same issue since they are
currently porting their Linux distribution to IA-64 and I believe PostgreSQL
is at least part of their x86 distribution. He said, however, that they
haven't ported PostgreSQL yet because of the assembler code you mentioned. I
suppose if an IA-64 port was being done or will be done (by RedHat, etc.)
that the people here will be the first to know (is that a correct
assumption?). I just wanted to make sure there was no duplication of effort
assuming I were to arrange something ;).

That being said, if I were interested in getting an IA-64 port started,
where would I begin? Hardware contributions might be a possibility (although
I know you were jesting =), as we typically ship Itanium SDVs to ISVs doing
such porting work. Due to the decentralized nature of this project, however,
I imagine it might be difficult to accomplish this because of the legal
hoops you have to jump through to get a machine (i.e. is there an
organization? where would it go? who would be responsible for it?). Another
(much better, I think) alternative would be to make an Itanium system
available on the network and the porting work could be done remotely. I
remember Intel announcing such an initiative a few months back for
opensource development on IA-64, but I don't know if that program is active
yet (I'd have to check). If not, I could make one of the Itanium systems in
our lab here available on the network. We even have betas of RedHat Linux
running on them already (development tools and all).

Which comes to the last question of developer resources =). Would there be
any developers available for doing such porting work? Since there is already
an Alpha port it shouldn't be that difficult. The biggest problem may be
with porting the assembly code and also getting it to work on what is
essentially beta-level OS/tools/hardware.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Jantz

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Lockhart [mailto:lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 8:45 AM
To: Tran, Jantz C
Cc: 'pgsql-ports(at)postgresql(dot)org'
Subject: Re: [PORTS] PostgreSQL on IA-64?

> Does anyone know if there is currently any effort to port PostgreSQL to
> IA-64? If so, does anyone have the contact information of the person doing
> this port? Thanks.

Please send hardware ;)

We have just gotten Postgres to be completely happy on Alpha boxes
without requiring patching. For a new platform, there is only a little
bit of assembler code to help with locks. Perhaps you might want to
arrange to contribute something for IA-64?

- Thomas