Re: Preparing the reduced bootstrap tarballs

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org>]

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 :-)

> [...]
>
>     (inputs `(("guile-tarball" ,%guile-bootstrap-tarball)
>               ,@(match (%current-system)
>                   ("i686-linux" `(("mescc-tools-seed" ,(@ (gnu packages bootstrap) %mescc-tools-seed))
>                                   ("mes-seed" ,(@ (gnu packages bootstrap) %mes-seed))
>                                   ("srfi-43" ,(@ (gnu packages bootstrap) %srfi-43))
>                                   ("tinycc-seed" ,(@ (gnu packages bootstrap) %tinycc-seed))))
>
> This does not actually build the bootstrap tarballs; instead it returns
> the pre-built seeds (also the ‘%tinycc-seed’ variable doesn’t exist.)

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

> 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?

> (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!

> Does that make sense?

Yes!

> Sorry for the delay, and apologies if I overlooked something!

Thank you for looking into and pointing out!
janneke