Re: how to ask for packages rebuilding
On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 10:57:04AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > Ideally, it could be automated, by delaying the build
> > of these packages by one day, and it would be fine.
>
> That's an option, although imperfect since it assumes that all
> architectures will always build all packages within one day, which
> simply isn't true.
Well, the problem is that when there is a 5 or 6 deep build-dependency
chain, and the turnover is more than a week, it makes for long long
build times, which is not acceptable in the current situation.
Also, i think it could be automated in having the autobuilder explicitly
check for build-dependencies versions, and don't trigger a rebuild when
the build-dependencies have no chance to be fullfillable.
> > So, what can we do to solve this thing in the future ? Either we upload
> > these packages with one day delay for each dependency chain, which is
> > not that good, since other auto-builder can handle this better, building
> > out of incoming and such, or we add an explicit build-dependency on
> > lablgl (>= 0.99-16) to lablgtk, 0.99-15 being the last ocaml 3.06-1
> > rebuilt package. I don't know if the autobuilders are smart enough to
> > notice this kind of error, and trigger a rebuild only if the
> > build-dependencies are available, but this could be a good thing to do,
> > and would also lower the lost time for the autobuilders trying to build
> > packages that are not buildable because of dependencies.
>
> First, let's get one misunderstanding out of the way: an autobuilder
> will not, by itself, put packages in dep-wait; only a human will. So, if
> a package failed due to unmet build-dependencies, it's a human who will
> have to prepare the list of dependencies for which a package will have
> to wait. Obviously, some people made errors in the ocaml situation
> (because of ignorance).
Ah, i thought (from the ia64 or hppa autobuilder situation) that failed
packages where put on hold automatically, and then retrigered manually.
> Adding more explicite build-dependencies certainly is a possibility as
> it makes things clearer for autobuilder maintainers; however, it is
> maybe not the best solution if it is technically possible to build
> lablgl against previous versions of ocaml: it will make backporting a
> little harder.
Well, i don't think it is a problem. There is not much sense in
backporting a library only, usually what is done is that the new version
of ocaml is babckported, and then all the libraries are rebuilt using
this backport. Also there may be incompatibilities with older versions
of ocaml in newer versions of the libraries (when they use new features
of the compiler and such). This is not the case here, i think, but has
been in the past, and will probably be in the future. ocaml 3.07 brings
with it a serie of sweet new features that will assuredly be used in
future code.
> I'll send a mail to the m68k porters' list, describing the problem, and
> outlining what needs to be done. That won't mean there will be no
> problems anymore, but it certainly will help.
Ok, please CC debian-ocaml-maint for the archive.
> > > I just instructed wanna-build to pretend ocaml-3.06-1 is available; all
> > > packages depending on ocaml-3.06-1 should at least be in needs-build
> > > again.
> >
> > Nope, this is not the solution. Just don't remove these packages from
> > needs-build, as they are all buildable, they just need to be built in
> > the proper order, and with one day difference unless you reuse the just
> > built packages for building the others.
>
> Then some of them don't belong in needs-build (yet), but instead in
> dep-wait -- only with the correct build-dependencies, instead of an old
> version of ocaml ;-)
Mmm.
> [...]
> > > > This is in an effort to get all the 40 or so ocaml packages ready to
> > > > enter testing by friday/saturday next week, so it would be nice if they
> > > > could be rebuilt.
> > >
> > > I can't promise anything about that, but at least they're re-scheduled
> > > again.
> >
> > But if i understand the issues involved correctly, the first step of the
> > dependency chain will build, but all the other packages will drop again
> > from the needs-build queue, right ?
>
> Yes, and that's what should happen: if they can't build, they have to
> wait until they can. Packages that have to wait don't belong in
> needs-build.
>
> However, what has gone wrong in the past is that the dependencies which
> were being waited on were incorrect. Instead of depending on ocaml, we
> should've depended on the new version of the library. Which simply
> didn't happen.
Yes. Adding explicit (>> version) build dependency to the libraries will
help there. I will add this to the debian/ocaml policy.
> > Anyway, this helps, since now someone from the autobuilder folk is aware
> > of the problem, and things will advance.
>
> Yes, I think I'm fully aware of what's happening and what needs to be
> done.
Ok, thanks.
Sorry for having insisted, but when a new version of ocaml is released,
we need to rebuild every ocaml libary and some packages, and each of
them need to enter testing at the same time, which is somewhat
constraining. Right now there are not many ocaml packages, but this may
change in the future as shown by the success of mldonkey for example.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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