Re: Architecture baseline for Forky
On Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 08:42:08PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Hi,
Hi Lucas,
> On 26/10/25 at 13:21 +0100, Bastian Blank wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > We never did a real discussion about architecture baselines before, but I think
> > we should do that. We also don't have any guidelines what we as Debian want to
> > actually support. But given that we are a general purpose distribution, we
> > have to find a balance.
>
> This thread only discusses bumping baselines, but I wonder if we should
> consider other ways to provide architecture-optimized versions of some
> packages?
>...
I did already discuss in [1] two additional topics, that should be
prerequisites for any productive discussion:
1. Lack of data
I have not seen any data discussed here on the benefits that could be a
basis for an actual discussion.
Like what are the actual performance differences between v1/v2/v3/v4
on amd64?
Which steps (if any) bring large performance improvements?
Are these performance improvements for everything and/or are there
large benefits that are limited to few packages?
I do remember how 20 years ago when Gentoo was new, people spent days
watching their computer compiling everything perfectly optimized for
their system - only to discover that it didn't make a noticeable
difference.
2. Don't restrict the discussion/data to architecture baselines
How much performance does security hardening cost?
What are the performance and size effects of building packages
optimized for size instead of speed?
What performance benefits would making x32 a (partial?) release
architecture bring?
...
We are already providing a non-PIE version of the Python interpreter for
users who need it for performance reasons, and it is for example
possible that the benefits of providing packages without hardening (for
situations where hardening is not necessary) might bring larger benefits
than architecture-optimized versions.
Would x32 optimized for v3 be the best option for many use cases?
Any discussion of possible solutions has to start with data showing what
changes might actually bring sufficient benefits for being worth the
effort.
> Lucas
cu
Adrian
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2025/10/msg00487.html
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