Let's include powerpc64le-linux in the next release (was: Re: Release on April 18th?)

[Chris Marusich]

Hi,

I have good news!

Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:

> Subject: [PATCH] syscalls: mount: Fix a matching bug.

If there are no concerns about this patch, I will commit it to master
(with the "mount" typo fixed so it reads "mounts") in the next few days.

> Efraim Flashner <efraim@flashner.co.il> writes:
>
>> I'm now running make guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz and so far
>> it's made it past the initial building stages, we're on to building the
>> grafts now.
>
> Thank you.  This fixed the patch-related problem for me, too.  I'm
> currently running "make guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz", also, on
> my Debian ppc64le machine.  We'll see how far it gets - fingers crossed!

I'm happy to report that I was able to do all of the following things
successfully on the wip-ppc64le-for-master branch after (1) applying the
syscalls patch mentioned above, (2) running "make update-guix-package",
and (3) locally committing the updated guix package:

- On a bare metal Debian ppc64le machine, I ran "make
  guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz" successfully.

- I installed the resulting guix binary in a fresh Debian ppc64le VM
  successfully.

- In the VM, using the newly installed guix binary, I successfully ran
  "guix pull" to update Guix to the commit I made in (3) above.

- In the VM, using the newly pulled guix, I built GNU Hello and verified
  that it ran successfully.

This demonstrates that wip-ppc64le-for-master is working.  Therefore, we
should merge it to master and officially include powerpc64le-linux
support in the next Guix release!  Thank you, Efraim, for taking the
initiative to adapt some of the commits from wip-ppc64le so they could
be applied to master without rebuilding the world on other systems.

I've verified that the wip-ppc64le-for-master branch does not rebuild
the world.  I did this by verifying that the derivations for the "hello"
and "gcc-toolchain" packages were the same at the branch point as they
are at the tip of the branch (e.g.: ./pre-inst-env guix build -d hello).

As I see it, the next tasks for powerpc64le-linux in this release are:

- Do a final rebase of wip-ppc64le-for-master, then merge it to master.

- When the release happens, make a guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz
  available wherever binary releases are normally published.

- Start building powerpc64le-linux substitutes in the build farm,
  ideally on POWER9 hardware.

How shall we build the binary tarball for the release?  Of course,
anybody with a copy of the (source) release tarball can build their own
guix binary by invoking "make guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz"
themselves.  However, for convenience, it would be nice to provide a
pre-built binary if possible.  Shall I build this myself when the time
comes, or would people prefer to do it a different way?

-- 
Chris

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