Hi together, minutes from the "32bit architectures in Debian" bof right now.
Andi 32bit architectures in Debian - 32bit architectures are not going away for the forseeable - Compiling/Linking is the memory-using issue - We need a way to compile/link with more memory Proposal A: - Use "cross-compilers" in the usual buildd chroot (e.g. an arm64 gcc building native armhf packages in an armhf chroots) - Cross-compiling isn't tested enough for all compilers, e.g. currently not for ghc, clang - The cross-compiler should be used on all packages (by being installed by default in the chroot) - Only the compilers actively used/approved for crosscompiling are being allowed to be installed in the chroot - Advantages: Testsuites etc can still be used as now - Nothing to be changed for packages using dh - We need to work out if gcc still works correctly with it (e.g. bootstraping) - If necessary we could have minimal architectures with only the compilers as master arches Proposal B: - Partial architectures to avoid large packages - Nobody yet done the work Proposal C: - just wait until the architecture dies Mixed Proposal: - Do Proposal A for the compilers it works - For other compilers if it's too much effort to make Proposal A work we use Proposal B for those packages depending on those compilers -> Recommendation: Mixed Proposal Specific issues: - for i386, there is still sold new hardware with 32bit-only. Are there open issues for i386 (apart from the 32bit-generic ones)? Discussion that we need to get rid of it one day should be started. - for powerpc, there is still 32bit-only hardware in use. - for excluding architectures on packages it would be nice to allow to blacklist architectures (instead of just listing all), plus linux64- and linux32-keywords (-> aba will do the bug report) - discussion about generic topics plus i386 will happen on -devel, for other arches on the relevant porters list