Re: Preparing the reduced bootstrap tarballs

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hello!

Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès writes:
>
> Hi!
>
>> (This is a followup to <https://bugs.gnu.org/33038>.)
>
>> I (finally!) run “guix build bootstrap-tarballs” on ‘core-updates-next’,
>> but that was a bit silly of me since that built the x86_64-linux
>> tarballs—i.e., not the “reduced seed.”
>>
>> So I was about to re-run it with “-s i686-linux”, but I noticed the
>> following issue in (gnu packages make-bootstrap):
>>
>> (define %bootstrap-tarballs
>>   ;; A single derivation containing all the bootstrap tarballs, for
>>   ;; convenience.
>>   (package
>
> Ah right.  I saw that several times but did not use it.  I think because
> initially it was of no use.  It would be nice if this built everything
> we need, I agree :-)

Heheh.  :-)  It’s what the “Building the Bootstrap Binaries” section
describes.

> Indeed.  "mes-seed" and "tinycc-seed" are remnants of the past; the only
> things we need are

OK.

>> What we would need here is something to build the things listed in
>> ‘%bootstrap-inputs’, namely:
>> ‘linux-libre-headers-stripped-4.14.26-i686-linux.tar.xz’ (easy :-)),
>> ‘mescc-tools-seed-XYZ.tar.gz’, and
>> ‘mes-stripped-0.18-0.08f04f5-i686-linux.tar.xz’
>
> So if you like, please make that change.  There is only one little
> thing: I have no (scripted) recipe to create mescc-tools-seed-XYZ.  But
> wait: I have a great excuse for that...I was too lazy or too sloppy.
>
> The thing is, I used to build mescc-tools-seed, mes-seed and tinycc-seed
> manually from the mes+mescc+tinycc source trees.  Jeremiah Orians is
> working to remove any need for mescc-tools-seed (esp. the forward
> dependency on Mes) but I don't think we're there yet.
>
> Anyway, I think we/I will have to put some work into scripting
> mescc-tools-seed or otherwise changing the mescc-tools-boot build.
> WDYT?

I’m confused: how did you build the seeds that (gnu packages bootstrap)
refers to in ‘core-updates-next’?

The goal is for the seeds to be built through Guix so we have a
transparent and documented way to reproduce/verify them.

I could propose a patch to do that, though from what you’re saying
generating ‘mescc-tools-seed’ is not something readily doable?

>> (do we really need an x86_64 version of this Mes?).
>
> No, I don't think so.  I added it esp. to get a preview and enable
> future development of pure x86_64 bootstrap; but dependency-wise we
> should be able to drop it!

Neat.

Thanks for the explanations!

Ludo’.