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Ports on Tier-2 architectures
Although most of the FreeBSD user base uses machines running either the amd64 or i386 codebase, we do have users of our other architectures.
This document describes the architectures that the Ports Collection currently recognizes.
Package Sets
- Various members of portmgr regularly build and upload official packages: see http://pkg-status.FreeBSD.org.
- MarkLinimon currently builds and uploads unofficial packages for the Tier-2 architectures he has access to (currently, armv7, powerpc64, and sparc64).
You can use portsmon to see more information about the build status of all buildenvs.
portsmon does not know anything about the powerpc64 or sparc64 builds yet.
the FreeBSD Ports Collection does not yet support 'true' cross-building. Currently, for cross-building we use emulated virtual machines via qemu.
The table below discusses only native building and building on emulated instances.
Package sets are generally built on the oldest supported branch for each supported release.
| arch | build type | built by | current buildenvs | updated | see also |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| amd64 | native | portmgr | 10.3, 11.1, head | ~weekly | |
| aarch64 | native | portmgr | 11.1 | ??? | ports |
| armv6 | emulation | portmgr | 11.1, head | ~weekly | ports |
| armv7 | emulation | MarkLinimon | head | ~weekly | ports |
| i386 | native | portmgr | 10.3, 11.1, head | ~weekly | |
| mips | emulation | portmgr | head | occasional | PackagesOnMIPS |
| mips64 | emulation | portmgr | head | occasional | PackagesOnMIPS |
| powerpc | native | ||||
| powerpc64 | native | MarkLinimon | 11.1 | occasional | |
| sparc64 | native | MarkLinimon | 11.0 | ~monthly | Sparc64Packages |
Other notes: releases previous to FreeBSD 10.x; alpha; and ia64 support have been discontinued; sun4v support was never completed.
See also PortsBrokenOnTier2Architectures.
Architecture Considerations
Here are some tips and tricks about the architectures themselves. Some of this is condensed from the information in ArchitectureSpecifics. Often the Makefile code needed to make port work on the various 32-bit archs can be cribbed from i386; similarly for BE vs. LE considerations. The Jenkins column shows the state of src build/installs under Continuous Integration.