Re: [gentoo-dev] Arch Status and Future Plans

[matoro <matoro_mailinglist_gentoo-dev@matoro.tk>]

On 2024-06-25 13:33, Arthur Zamarin wrote:
> So, are you ready for seeing the mess? Here we go.

Thanks Arthur, I can add some input as another AT.

> ======== 32-bit arches ========
> 
> This includes stable arches x86, arm, ppc, sparc32, dev arches s390, and
> maybe more. Those are in much worse situation, with a mess on various
> fronts, some of them super hard to continue support. For example
> qtwebengine is less and less likely to manage to compile on a
> real-hardware, and not 32-bit chroot on 64-bit host. Arch Team want to
> minimize our work on those arches, meaning mass-destable and even
> mass-dekeyword, with potentially full drop of stable status.

I think all of these need to be moved to dev.  Particular attention on ppc 
because somebody seems to have gone on a rampage throwing keywords at it and 
so I frequently see packages with things like KEYWORDS="amd64 ppc" which 
makes no sense.

Also, hppa is 32-bit as well.  The hardware is 64-bit, and so is the kernel, 
but the userspace is 32-bit.

sparc32 and s390 I think need to be dropped or exp at least.  For the former 
we need to get sys-boot/silo out of tree.
Also, in https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:Main_Page#SPARC_Handbook we 
specifically call out:
> In Gentoo, only SPARC64-compatible CPUs are supported.

> ======== ppc64 ========
> 
> Stable 64-bit arch. So, this is a mess of an arch. Consists of both
> ppc64ul (big-endian) and ppc64le (little-endian). The latter is much
> better supported by upstream. The profiles inheritance inside is a mess
> (we even added running 32 userspace on 64 bit kernel, called ppc64/32ul
> - just why?). We have devboxes for both BE and LE, so mostly fine. The
> profile inheritance is the messiest I've even seen.
> 
> I would hope to split this arch into the two endianness, but I suspect
> nobody has the energy to do it. Oh well.
> 
> Next proposal is to cleanup profiles: remove the ppc64/32ul, cleanup
> profile inheritance, cleanup the masks and unmasks, and continue with
> both ppc64ul & ppc64le supported.

Agree that this needs to be split.  I could do the profile reorganization, 
but would need a developer who would be able to in one shot replace all 
KEYWORDS with both entries.

> ======== hppa ========
> 
> Sigh. Stable 64-bit arch. Out main Gentoo devbox died, and the second
> one is always stuck compiling gcc for stage3 (a compilation takes 7
> days). Here we have a fight in Arch Team. I prefer to destable it, Sam
> prefers to stable it. This one is tough.

FWIW as the one handling these for now I also would prefer destable.  I would 
say that any wd40 profiles should be ineligible for stable.

> ======== ia64 ========
> 
> Dev 64-bit arch. Kernel dropped support, glibc dropped support, devbox
> died - days are short before full exp status or full removal of arch.

I would prefer to see this go straight from dev to removed.  Also, a timeline 
on removal with respect to kernel/glibc EOL would be nice so that it doesn't 
just stay up in the air indefinitely.  Our python deprecation schedule is a 
model of clarity.

> ======== alpha ========
> 
> Exp arch, with nearly (or maybe already) full correct dep-tree. matoro
> did a lot of great work here, so I think we should promote it to dev
> arch, so dep-tree remains unbroken. We dekeyworded a lot of stuff,
> cleaned it up, so a nice "completion bonus".

Yes, this has been basically fully-correct for months now and it's very 
annoying to play catch-up constantly.  Please make this dev at the soonest 
opportunity.

Also, current tree correctness is stuck on this:  
https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/36711

> ======== mips ========
> 
> Exp arch, with mostly good dep-tree. Does mips team want to make it dev
> arch?

Unfortunately this is in much worse state than alpha.  For a long while it 
was stuck on rust but luckily we now have rust and llvm, so I should be able 
to make more progress on it, but it's slow going.  Dekeywording efforts would 
be hugely appreciated here.