[sane-devel] Re: Sane on Ultra Sparc

[T. Ribbrock]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 01:26:34PM +0100, abel deuring wrote:
> "T. Ribbrock" wrote:
[...]
> > For sane this means that to compile sane 64bit one would have to
> > (re-)build *all* related libraries (starting with libc, libm, etc.pp.)
> > 64bit - quite a lot of work.
> 
> So you run *only* 32 bit applications?

Pretty much so. Solaris 8 on an UltraSparc is the same, by the way -
just checked. Userland is pretty much 32bit, unless 64bit is
explicitly needed.


> I asked Doug Gilbert, the maintainer of the SG driver, for hints how to
> solve the problem. While he agrees with my diagnosis, he had no easy
> solution at hand. It simply does not work to pass 32 bit pointers from a
> application, where the kernel expects 64 bit pointers. Using the old SG
> interface would make things a bit easier, because no pointers are passed
> as parameters. But the size of the ints in struct sg_header might
> nevertheless be a problem.

Hm. I am by no means an expert in any way, but I'd naively assume that
this type of problem must have been encountered (and maybe solved) by
other programs as well? I wonder how things like cdrecord or suchlike
work on these platforms. Mind you, I'm just brainstorming a bit... :-}


> > Unfortunately, neither do I know this. Has that issue been resolved
> > for Alpha machines?
> 
> I don't know. But according to Doug , similar problems exist for Itanium
> processors. 

Then I'd be surprised if Alpha was any better - I find it kind of
telling that http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-support.html lists lots
of "?" for the 64bit platforms... ;-)

Cheerio,

Thomas
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      Thomas Ribbrock    http://www.ribbrock.org    ICQ#: 15839919
   "You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"