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.)

[Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>]

Hi Mark,

> 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.

> When I suggest that the community would not take certain suggestions
> seriously, e.g. the suggestion to block upgrades or merges that would
> break non-x86_64 systems, that statement has some meaning.  I means that
> I expect that most people here would disagree, and that the maintainers
> would rule in favor of "moving forward" at full speed, and that it will
> be the responsibility of the tiny number of non-x86_64 Guix users to fix
> portability bugs as quickly as needed so that the x86_64-using majority
> need not suffer any delays.

It’s neither about “moving forward” at all costs nor about “full speed”;
while we are generally moving forward, it’s hardly at full speed.  The
last core-updates merge was blocked for months, but it contained
critical fixes that had to be worked around in other branches, which was
an untenable position given the number of developers.

FWIW, I’m using a i686 machine with 2GB RAM myself, and I did test the
core-updates things on that machine (as far as the software is concerned
that I’m using).  I was rather surprised by the GRUB bug, to be honest.

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.

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.

--
Ricardo