arm support of workstation product

[Josh Boyer]

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 02:43:10PM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
>> I won't speak for the rest of the WG as a whole, but in the few
>> conversations I've had with people ARM wasn't something most thought
>> was a target for Workstation.  It might be feasible for interested
>> people to produce Workstation ARM images, but I would be surprised if
>> that were made a requirement at this point.
>
> There's ARM hardware that is, at least theoretically, capable of running
> Workstation and has the kind of form factor for which Workstation is
> probably the appropriate product. As long as the ARM team are willing to
> take responsibility for ensuring drivers and install media work, and as
> long as there's someone doing QA, it seems like something we should
> support in an official sense.

My concern would be that without it being an official target from the
start, we run the risk of brokenness being found late in the game.
Does it seem possible to add an "official" designation to ARM (and
i686 for that matter) if things prove to be working by whatever cutoff
date we have?  That would seem to put more impetus on the people doing
the things you suggest without us declaring either of those
architectures by default.

I'm not as optimistic as some when it comes to viable accelerated
graphics hardware on ARM in the F21 timeframe.  If testing of
Workstation ARM can't even begin until things are merged, and that
happens at the tail end of the development window, I don't really want
us to be stuck in the blocker/demotion game if it doesn't happen.
Opportunistic "promotion" seems a decent compromise.

josh