Source: e2fsprogs Version: 1.43.4-2 Severity: wishlist User: [email protected] Usertags: rebootstrap
Hi, I'm having difficulties figuring the intended behaviour of e2fsprogs for mips* hosts. Can you clarify the following questions and update the packaging accordingly? * e2fsprogs Build-Depends: gcc-multilib [mips mipsel], yet it only actually builds 64bit libs during native builds. I think that either the build dependency should be annotated with <!cross> to indicate that gcc-multilib is not used during cross builds or e2fsprogs should build the 64bit libs during cross builds. What is preferred? * Having native builds differ from cross builds is considered bad practise. Ideally, we want to validate cross builds against native builds using diffoscope, i.e. we aim for reproducible cross builds. Please rethink whether this difference is really necessary. Building cross toolchains with multilib support is feasible. I've been doing that for like 2 years now. If opting out of these builds is necessary, the <nobiarch> build profile should be used rather than doing so unconditionally for cross builds. * It seems that the extra libraries are called libext2fs-nopic.a and lib64ext2fs-nopic.a (i.e. static libraries). Are they really still in use? They were added for #329074. As far as I understand that bug report, they were added for arcboot, which got removed November last year. So maybe these can go away as well? I essentially see three reasonable outcomes now (in order of preference): * Remove these libraries and the gcc-multilib dependency. * Make building these libraries conditional to the absence of a <nobiarch> profile, but build them during cross builds. * Annotate the gcc-multilib dependency with <!cross>. The current state is undesirable, because e2fsprogs is cross bd-uninstallable (gcc-multilib unsatisfiable) on mips/mipsel for no useful reason. Please use or remove that dependency. Helmut
