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Mathieu Benoit 057b1b471c [ADD] bootstrap pacman, makepkg and repo-add natively on s390x The README lists pacman, bash and coreutils as three missing pieces. They are not three tasks: pacman is the only one that matters, because its source tree also ships makepkg and repo-add. Once those run, every remaining package stops being hand-work and becomes makepkg on the upstream PKGBUILD. pacman 7.1.0 builds unpatched on s390x. No cross-compilation is involved: on native hardware the whole userspace builds at full speed, which removes the z/VM round-trip the other scripts need. Measured end to end: zlib built from the official PKGBUILD yields zlib, zlib-static and minizip, all tagged arch = s390x, the library reporting "ELF 64-bit MSB shared object, IBM S/390", and repo-add indexing them into a usable core.db. --- FR --- Le README annonce pacman, bash et coreutils comme trois pieces manquantes. Ce ne sont pas trois travaux : seul pacman compte, parce que son arbre source livre aussi makepkg et repo-add. Des qu ils tournent, chaque paquet restant cesse d etre du travail manuel et devient un makepkg sur le PKGBUILD amont. pacman 7.1.0 se compile sans correctif sur s390x. Aucune compilation croisee n intervient : sur du materiel natif tout l espace utilisateur se batit a pleine vitesse, ce qui supprime l aller-retour z/VM dont dependent les autres scripts. Mesure de bout en bout : zlib bati depuis le PKGBUILD officiel produit zlib, zlib-static et minizip, tous marques arch = s390x, la bibliotheque se declarant « ELF 64-bit MSB shared object, IBM S/390 », et repo-add les indexant dans un core.db utilisable. Assisted-by: Claude Opus 5		2026-08-15 03:18:47 -04:00
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boot	making the house a home	2026-01-27 23:26:31 +01:00
patches	full boot with systemd	2025-06-05 12:32:34 +02:00
scripts	[ADD] bootstrap pacman, makepkg and repo-add natively on s390x	2026-08-15 03:18:47 -04:00
.env.example	full boot with systemd	2025-06-05 12:32:34 +02:00
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LICENSE	use arch kernel patches	2025-06-02 21:53:33 +02:00
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README.md	making the house a home	2026-01-27 23:26:31 +01:00

README.md

Arch Linux s390x

A port of Arch Linux to IBM s390x mainframe architecture with systemd support.

Boots a full Arch Linux system on IBM mainframes (or QEMU s390x emulation) using a hybrid build: cross-compilation for the kernel, native s390x compilation on z/VM for userspace.

Quick Start

make container        # build dev container (first time)
cp .env.example .env  # configure z/VM access
make all              # build kernel + initramfs + systemd
make test-systemd     # boot it

What Works

Arch Linux kernel 6.18.6-arch1 with Arch patches, cross-compiled
Initramfs via modified mkinitcpio
Static busybox built natively on z/VM, 2.3MB
Root filesystem with ext4, switch_root to real rootfs
Systemd as PID 1

Pacman, bash, and GNU coreutils are not yet ported.

Build System

The build uses two tiers:

Cross-compilation (x86_64 host): Kernel is built in a Fedora 43 container with s390x-linux-gnu-gcc. Initramfs is generated with a patched mkinitcpio that handles cross-architecture binary injection.

Native compilation (s390x z/VM): Busybox and systemd must be built on real s390x hardware. The z/VM system runs RHEL 9.6 with GCC 11.5.0. Scripts handle SSH deployment and retrieval automatically via .env configuration.