Application for aarch64 computing resources

Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Leo Famulari]

Those of us who watch the Guix build farm [0] closely have identified
the lack of capacity for building ARM binaries as a serious limitation.

As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
farm:

https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254

This is the official program for getting donations of this type; it's a
partnership between Equinix and ARM.

Let me know if you see any room for improvement; the application can be
edited.

[0] https://ci.guix.gnu.org

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Vagrant Cascadian]

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On 2021-04-02, Leo Famulari wrote:
> Those of us who watch the Guix build farm [0] closely have identified
> the lack of capacity for building ARM binaries as a serious limitation.
>
> As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
> donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
> farm:
>
> https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254
>
> This is the official program for getting donations of this type; it's a
> partnership between Equinix and ARM.
>
> Let me know if you see any room for improvement; the application can be
> edited.

You might want to also ask for hardware that has the extensions for
32-bit arm, if we also want to improve substitute availability for armhf
too. The 32-bit extensions are optional for aarch64, and thus not all
hardware supports it.


live well,
  vagrant

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Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Leo Famulari]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 11:56:03AM -0700, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> You might want to also ask for hardware that has the extensions for
> 32-bit arm, if we also want to improve substitute availability for armhf
> too. The 32-bit extensions are optional for aarch64, and thus not all
> hardware supports it.

I will keep this in mind, pending their reply.

The ticket system automatically added the tag 'hardware/ampere-altra'.
So, it may be a case of "we can have any CPU we want, as long as it's an
Ampere ALTRA"... as Henry Ford said, "Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." 

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Fri, 2021-04-02 at 16:25 -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> I will keep this in mind, pending their reply.
> 
> The ticket system automatically added the tag 'hardware/ampere-
> altra'.
> So, it may be a case of "we can have any CPU we want, as long as it's
> an
> Ampere ALTRA"... as Henry Ford said, "Any customer can have a car
> painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." 
> 

If we have an entire Ampere Altra to build our stuff, holy we will have
so much compute power. Probably it's the fastest single machine on
earth right now. 

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Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Nicolò Balzarotti]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> Those of us who watch the Guix build farm [0] closely have identified
> the lack of capacity for building ARM binaries as a serious limitation.
>
> As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
> donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
> farm:
>
> https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254
> Let me know if you see any room for improvement; the application can be
> edited.

Hi! There's a typo: "dinary distros" -> binary

also, extra 'this' in: this goal this for x86

Thanks, Nicolò

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Leo Famulari]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 08:57:41PM +0200, Nicolò Balzarotti wrote:
> Hi! There's a typo: "dinary distros" -> binary
> 
> also, extra 'this' in: this goal this for x86

Thanks! Fixed :)

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Katherine Cox-Buday]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
> donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
> farm:
>
> https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254

I'm extremely happy to see this, and I hope we can increase our ARM
capacity. Thanks for making this submission, Leo!

-- 
Katherine

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Leo Famulari]

On Sat, Apr 03, 2021 at 04:28:28PM -0500, Katherine Cox-Buday wrote:
> I'm extremely happy to see this, and I hope we can increase our ARM
> capacity. Thanks for making this submission, Leo!

Thank you so much for your support!

Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Leo Famulari]

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On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 02:43:20PM -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
> donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
> farm:
> 
> https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254

Unfortunately our request was not granted, due to limited inventory.

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Re: Application for aarch64 computing resources

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:

> On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 02:43:20PM -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
>> As part of our efforts to improve the situation, I've applied for
>> donation of aarch64 (64-bit ARM) computing resources for the Guix build
>> farm:
>> 
>> https://github.com/WorksOnArm/cluster/issues/254
>
> Unfortunately our request was not granted, due to limited inventory.

Too bad; thanks for letting us know.

So now’s a good time to spend the project’s money on AArch64 hardware.
I think there’s already some on its ways, right?

If people can think of other potential sponsors, we can get in touch
with them, too!

Thanks,
Ludo’.