Hi, I am not sure I will have the time to solve the remaining issues, but I would like to share some intermediate results with you. Find attached the smalltalk file I have in my personal channel, it contains 2 package definitions. smalltalk-alt: corresponds to the `normal' smalltalk package with various fixes over the one currently in gui (a) added dependencies, (b) uses gcc-5 for building because I found a reference in the smalltalk mailing list about newer GCC releases optimizing some statements away that are crucial for GNU Smalltalk to build. As a result the test failures for intmath and others that are present in the current `smalltalk' recipe in guix are resolved in this variant. Note that there are still failing tests for this release, namely all the ANSI compliancy tests. I do feel like since each and every one of these tests fails, it might be a build-system-setup/autotest related failure. `smalltalk-next' is a derived clean build from the VCS. I dropped the pre-release build as you suggested in (2). As for going forward I am not quite sure whether I'll find time to do more debugging. If I were a heavy GNU Smalltalk user I'd probably use `smalltalk-next' anyway as it seems to build flawlessly. -- Failing Tests for `smalltalk-alt' ANSI compliancy tests. 47: ArrayANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:83) 48: ArrayFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:84) 49: BagANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:85) 50: BagFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:86) 51: BooleanANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:87) 52: ByteArrayANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:88) 53: ByteArrayFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:89) 54: CharacterANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:90) 55: CharacterFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:91) 56: DateAndTimeANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:92) 57: DateAndTimeFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:93) 58: DictionaryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:94) 59: DictionaryFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:95) 60: DurationANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:96) 61: DurationFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:97) 62: DyadicValuableANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:98) 63: ErrorANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:99) 64: ErrorClassANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:100) 65: ExceptionANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:101) 66: ExceptionClassANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:102) 67: ExceptionSetANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:103) 68: FailedMessageANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:104) 69: FileStreamFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:105) 70: FloatANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:106) 71: FloatCharacterizationANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:107) 72: FractionANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:108) 73: FractionFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:109) 74: IdentityDictionaryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:110) 75: IdentityDictionaryFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:111) 76: IntegerANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:112) 77: IntervalANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:113) 78: IntervalFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:114) 79: MessageNotUnderstoodANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:115) 80: MessageNotUnderstoodSelectorANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:116) 81: MonadicBlockANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:117) 82: NilANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:118) 83: NiladicBlockANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:119) 84: NotificationANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:120) 85: NotificationClassANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:121) 86: ObjectANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:122) 87: ObjectClassANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:123) 88: OrderedCollectionANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:124) 89: OrderedCollectionFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:125) 90: ReadFileStreamANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:126) 91: ReadStreamANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:127) 92: ReadStreamFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:128) 93: ReadWriteStreamANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:129) 94: ReadWriteStreamFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:130) 95: ScaledDecimalANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:131) 96: SelectorANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:132) 97: SetANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:133) 98: SetFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:134) 99: SortedCollectionANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:135) 100: SortedCollectionFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:136) 101: StringANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:137) 102: StringFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:138) 103: SymbolANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:139) 104: TranscriptANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:140) 105: WarningANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:141) 106: WarningClassANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:142) 107: WriteFileStreamANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:143) 108: WriteStreamANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:144) 109: WriteStreamFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:145) 110: ZeroDivideANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:146) 111: ZeroDivideFactoryANSITest FAILED (testsuite.at:147) On Sat, 2020-12-05 at 15:30 +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote: > Hi Holger, > > Holger Peters skribis: > > > * gnu/packages/smalltalk.scm (smalltalk): disable tests > > (smalltalk-next): New variable. > > (smalltalk-next-from-vcs): New variable. > > I have mostly two comments, as discussed on IRC (restating them here > for > those following along): > >   1. Instead of disabling tests wholesale, what we usually do is (1) >      investigate why the test is failing (I think it’s a single test >      failure here), (2) try to determine whether it’s serious or not, >      (3) see if we can work around it with reasonable effort, and if >      not, skip just this test. > >   2. I think we should just have ‘smalltalk’ (latest release) and >      ‘smalltalk-next’ (VCS snapshot).  Having an extra package for > the release candidate is not really useful IMO, and not something we >      generally do.