Re: PostgreSQL for VAX on NetBSD/OpenBSD

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 5:30 AM, John Klos <john(at)ziaspace(dot)com> wrote:
> A high end VAX, such as a 4000 Model 108, can have 512 megs (as can an
> 11/780, at least in theory), but most of the VAXen used here are VAXstations
> such as the 4000/60 or 4000/90, 90a or 96, which have either 104 megs or 128
> megs.

Hmm, not bad for old hardware.

> and it launched fine. I then tried to run:
>
> gmake MAX_CONNECTIONS=5 installcheck
>
> in
> /usr/pkgsrc/databases/postgresql93-server/work/postgresql-9.3.4/src/test/regress,
> but it failed with:
>
> ...
> gmake[2]: Leaving directory
> '/usr/pkgsrc/databases/postgresql93-server/work/postgresql-9.3.4/src/backend'
> gcc -O1 -fgcse -fstrength-reduce -fgcse-after-reload -I/usr/include
> -I/usr/local/include -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith
> -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wendif-labels -Wmissing-format-attribute
> -Wformat-security -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -pthread -mt -D_REENTRANT
> -D_THREAD_SAFE -D_POSIX_PTHREAD_SEMANTICS -I../../src/port -DFRONTEND
> -I../../src/include -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -c -o thread.o
> thread.c
> cc1: error: unrecognized command line option "-mt" <builtin>: recipe for
> target 'thread.o' failed
> gmake[1]: *** [thread.o] Error 1
> gmake[1]: Leaving directory
> '/usr/pkgsrc/databases/postgresql93-server/work/postgresql-9.3.4/src/port'
> ../../../src/Makefile.global:423: recipe for target 'submake-libpgport'
> failed
> gmake: *** [submake-libpgport] Error 2
>
> That's all I have time for tonight. Is there an easier way to run a
> testsuite?

I think you're doing it right, but apparently configure is
mis-identifying which flags are needed for thread-safety on your
platform. It's possible configuring with --disable-thread-safety
would help, or you could manually edit the Makefile.

In any case I'm coming to the conclusion that there's little point in
us keeping the VAX-specific code in our source tree, because in fact,
this port is broken and doesn't work. Based on your results thus far,
I doubt that it would be a huge amount of work to fix that, but unless
somebody from the VAX community wants to volunteer to be a PostgreSQL
maintainer for that platform, straighten out the things that have
gotten broken since this port was originally added, and keep it
working on an ongoing basis, it's probably not going to happen.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company