http://www.postgresql.org/doxlist.html (fwd)

I was browsing your compatibility listing and had a possibly odd
question. I have Yellow Dog Linux installed on a Power Macintosh and
wondered if PostgreSQL would work? Would it be as simple as a recompile
on my platform, or would it be more complicated?

Since we list PPC mklinux and LinuxPPC as tested platforms, I don't see
any reason to think it wouldn't work. You might have to do a little
fooling around to cobble together a suitable OS configuration template
file, but I'd surely think it couldn't vary too much from the linux_ppc
template. Give it a try and let us know. We always like adding new
platforms to the support list ;-)

BTW, hackers: does anyone understand just how the spinlock support
works on PPC, SPARC, etc? For example, I see that include/port/linux.h
defines HAS_TEST_AND_SET for __powerpc__ or __sparc__, but that should
mean that there's a machine-specific tas() subroutine somewhere. All
I can find is code in backend/storage/buffer/s_lock.c that looks like
the right thing, but it's called tas_dummy() not tas()! How does
control get to it?

regards, tom lane

BTW, hackers: does anyone understand just how the spinlock support
works on PPC, SPARC, etc? For example, I see that include/port/linux.h
defines HAS_TEST_AND_SET for __powerpc__ or __sparc__, but that should
mean that there's a machine-specific tas() subroutine somewhere. All
I can find is code in backend/storage/buffer/s_lock.c that looks like
the right thing, but it's called tas_dummy() not tas()! How does
control get to it?

I'm not sure about sparc but... in the following asm code, there is a
symbol "tas" that is visibile to linker. I rember that tas() codes on
some platforms used to do similar thing as sparc and power pc. Now
they have been rewritten so that they use the inlining. The reason why
power pc still remains as it is is just I don't know how to write
power pc asm code suitable for inlining :-)

static void
tas_dummy()
{
__asm__(" \n\
.global tas \n\
tas: \n\
lwarx 5,0,3 \n\
cmpwi 5,0 \n\
bne fail \n\
[snip]
--
Tatsuo Ishii

Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp> writes:

I can find is code in backend/storage/buffer/s_lock.c that looks like
the right thing, but it's called tas_dummy() not tas()! How does
control get to it?

I'm not sure about sparc but... in the following asm code, there is a
symbol "tas" that is visibile to linker.

Oh ... right ... duh! Sheesh, you'd think I didn't know how to read
assembler :-(

regards, tom lane

I was browsing your compatibility listing and had a possibly odd
question. I have Yellow Dog Linux installed on a Power Macintosh and
wondered if PostgreSQL would work? Would it be as simple as a recompile
on my platform, or would it be more complicated?

I recall seeing an add in a linux-oriented catalog for YD-linux and it
claimed that it shipped with Postgres (as well as a couple of other
RDBMSes, though I don't know why ;)

Are you sure your distro doesn't already have Postgres?

- Thomas

--
Thomas Lockhart lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu
South Pasadena, California