Re: RFC: Portability should be a higher priority for Guix (was Re: 01/01: build-system/meson: Really skip the 'fix-runpath' phase on armhf.)

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hello,

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

>> However, I do feel frustrated by the fact that it's considered
>> acceptable in this community to leave non-x86_64 users with broken
>> systems in the name of "moving things forward" for x86_64 users.
>
> I don’t think this is true.

What is true is that most Guix users use x86_64 primarily.  But there’s
also a lot of interest in ARM.

Guix doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and I think the situation of non-x86_64
support in Guix is just as good or bad as in other free software
projects.  We have fewer packages available on non-x86_64 architectures,
but that’s in large part due to upstream packages not supporting those
architectures in the first place.

I agree this is sad, but repeating it doesn’t help address it.

> I do agree with your laments about a lack of popularity of non-x86_64
> systems and thus developers, but I do think this has been getting better
> with the work this community has done to support Guix for the aarch64
> and armhf architectures, and by adding aarch64/armhf build servers to
> the build farm.  We can and should do more of this, but it won’t happen
> by decree.

Agreed.

> One thing that would help, in my opinion, is to purchase hardware and
> make it available to interested developers and/or join these new
> machines to the build farm.  We would need to come to an agreement about
> at least these things:
>
>   * what exact system configurations do we want?
>   * where would these systems be hosted?
>   * how many do we need / can we afford to buy and pay hosting fees for?
>
> The last time this has come up the discussion kinda tapered out.  It
> would be good if someone or a group of people would volunteer to take
> this on and drive this project to its conclusion.

I agree!  If someone cares about ARM, for instance, now’s the time to
tell us what we should buy and to offer to help out with
hosting/sysadmin.  That would be immensely helpful in maintaining
non-x86_64 up to speed.

Thanks,
Ludo’.