Upstream Support for LoongArch

Upstream Support for LoongArch

[Kaiyang Wu]

Hello Proxmox maintainers,

We are currently bootstrapping and maintaining an unofficial LoongArch 
(Debian: loong64) port based on Debian 13 Trixie from the Loong13 
project (https://loong13.debian.net/). We are currently tracking the 
required patches to build packages on LoongArch at 
https://github.com/orgs/pve-loong64-port/repositories.

LoongArch is a new RISC ISA developed by Loongson Technology. The 
Loongson 3 family supports virtualization via the LVZ extension, and 
while the Loongson 2 family of SoCs do not support virtualization, they 
are capable of running containerized applications via LXC. The 
performance of the latest mainstream server processor, Loongson 
3C6000/S, is about equivalent to an AMD Ryzen 7 5700 and, the latest 
Loongson 2 SoC, 2K3000, is about equivalent to an Intel N95. This means 
that Loongson's mainstream processors are capable of hosting Proxmox VE 
instances.

There is an existing unofficial port of Proxmox VE 9.0 to LoongArch 
maintained by Lierfang (https://github.com/jiangcuo/pxvirt). While we 
recognize their effort on maintaining the port, the repository has not 
been actively maintained for 8 months. We do not plan on using their 
patchset and will maintain our own in order to align them for upstreaming.

We would like to seek chances to support LoongArch officially by Proxmox 
in the future. Loongson Hobbyists Community (https://loongfans.cn/en/) 
will provide long term support for the LoongArch port. If needed, we 
will be able to supply LoongArch devices for testing. To support the 
upstream work, we would like to know about the current workflow for 
managing patches, maintenance, and testing process. We are happy to 
answer any of your questions or comments.

We originally intended to send this E-Mail from wukaiyang@loongfans.cn, 
but we were unable to subscribe to the mailing list, as the mailing list 
server rejected our mailing addresses with the error message: Recipient 
address rejected: Service is unavailable (try later).

Best,
Kaiyang Wu