Minutes from the "32bit architectures in Debian"-bof

[Andreas Barth <aba@ayous.org>]

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