[arch-dev-public] Doing a rebuild of [core]?
Hi, I was thinking of doing a fairly large rebuild of packages in [core] for the following reasons: - The toolchain is quite good at the moment and many packages have not been built in a long time so could use a refresher build to take advantage of what the newer toolchain offers (~15 packages are > 1 year old). I expect a toolchain update to happen in the next few weeks so this is a good time. - Get as many packages to .xz format as possible. This will give us more room to play on the install CD (important with dual arch ISO where I believe space is tight) - Get all packages into the package pool. It is nicer to have packages in one place rather than across multiple folders. Once all packages are in the pool directories, the clean-up script can be a lot easier (of course that is a long term implication). It would also get rid of the core/os/any folder. - Give PKGBUILDs a refresher... package() functions, no "|| return 1", etc. Make sure packages build with an updated toolchain. - Deal with the few [core] package issues on the Unimportant Rebuild List (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Unimportant_Rebuild_List). Given the goals mentioned there, it is obvious that regularly updated packages do not need to be part of the rebuild. Looking at the packages, there would be about 100 rebuilds all up. So it would result in a bunch of signoff emails... But I would start with the oldest packages and work through the list fairly slowly so this will hopefully not be an issue. Any objections/suggestions? Allan
Am Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:16:34 +1000 schrieb "Allan McRae" <allan@archlinux.org>:
Hi,
I was thinking of doing a fairly large rebuild of packages in [core] for the following reasons:
- The toolchain is quite good at the moment and many packages have not been built in a long time so could use a refresher build to take advantage of what the newer toolchain offers (~15 packages are > 1 year old). I expect a toolchain update to happen in the next few weeks so this is a good time.
What update do you expect? Usually a rebuild is useful to catch up latest major gcc improvements. Gcc4.6 is still in an early stage. Maybe we should delay it until the gcc4.6 release. The toolchain improvements over the last 2 years were of minor advantages. So I don't expect major performance improvements. Getting the packages into xz compression format and pkg pool would be nice though. One concern for a rebuild right now: most packagers allowed for pushing packages into core haven't been much online lately. Not sure if they can spend that much time. Sadly "makeworld" has died. But I remember Daniel made such a rebuild script locally (was at gcc4.3 release?). -Andy
On 18/11/10 15:52, Andreas Radke wrote:
Am Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:16:34 +1000 schrieb "Allan McRae"<allan@archlinux.org>:
Hi,
I was thinking of doing a fairly large rebuild of packages in [core] for the following reasons:
- The toolchain is quite good at the moment and many packages have not been built in a long time so could use a refresher build to take advantage of what the newer toolchain offers (~15 packages are> 1 year old). I expect a toolchain update to happen in the next few weeks so this is a good time.
What update do you expect? Usually a rebuild is useful to catch up latest major gcc improvements. Gcc4.6 is still in an early stage. Maybe we should delay it until the gcc4.6 release.
I expect binutils in the next couple of weeks (they have branched) and probably a glibc release given Fedora 14 is released with what is usually considered an RC glibc release. Gcc-4.6 is actually in stage 3 (bug fix only), but they still have a large number of P1 bugs to get rid of before release. But given it took a few months to sort out the toolchain issues after the initial gcc-4.5 release, I would much prefer doing this before gcc-4.6...
The toolchain improvements over the last 2 years were of minor advantages. So I don't expect major performance improvements.
Getting the packages into xz compression format and pkg pool would be nice though.
One concern for a rebuild right now: most packagers allowed for pushing packages into core haven't been much online lately. Not sure if they can spend that much time. Sadly "makeworld" has died. But I remember Daniel made such a rebuild script locally (was at gcc4.3 release?).
Fair point. I was never expecting much help actually doing the rebuilds as this is a very low priority task... and keeping [core] as pristine as possible is probably not much of an obsession for people other than me! Also, there is no real rush in getting this done. So I do not think packaging manpower will be an issue as long as people can give signoffs for the packages that are built. Allan
Am 18.11.2010 06:52, schrieb Andreas Radke:
Am Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:16:34 +1000 schrieb "Allan McRae"<allan@archlinux.org>:
Hi,
I was thinking of doing a fairly large rebuild of packages in [core] for the following reasons:
- The toolchain is quite good at the moment and many packages have not been built in a long time so could use a refresher build to take advantage of what the newer toolchain offers (~15 packages are> 1 year old). I expect a toolchain update to happen in the next few weeks so this is a good time. What update do you expect? Usually a rebuild is useful to catch up latest major gcc improvements. Gcc4.6 is still in an early stage. Maybe we should delay it until the gcc4.6 release.
The toolchain improvements over the last 2 years were of minor advantages. So I don't expect major performance improvements.
Getting the packages into xz compression format and pkg pool would be nice though.
One concern for a rebuild right now: most packagers allowed for pushing packages into core haven't been much online lately. Not sure if they can spend that much time. Sadly "makeworld" has died. But I remember Daniel made such a rebuild script locally (was at gcc4.3 release?).
That's right, I made such a rebuild script. But I'm not really sure if I have it any longer. Have to check it at home. It was a hackish bash script which increased the pkgrel variable and rebuild the package, that's all. I'm not that close to the toolchain changes and its improvements, so if you think it's time for that go ahead. :) -Daniel
On Thursday 18 November 2010 07:20:54 Daniel Isenmann wrote:
That's right, I made such a rebuild script. But I'm not really sure if I have it any longer. Have to check it at home. It was a hackish bash script which increased the pkgrel variable and rebuild the package, that's all. We have to use the package() function and to remove the ||return 1 stuff. I don't think that do this job with a script is a good idea.
Anyway, count on me for this rebuild. -- Andrea Scarpino Arch Linux Developer
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:24:33 +0100, Andrea Scarpino <andrea@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thursday 18 November 2010 07:20:54 Daniel Isenmann wrote:
That's right, I made such a rebuild script. But I'm not really sure if I have it any longer. Have to check it at home. It was a hackish bash script which increased the pkgrel variable and rebuild the package, that's all. We have to use the package() function and to remove the ||return 1 stuff. I don't think that do this job with a script is a good idea.
Anyway, count on me for this rebuild.
Dito, could help also. Btw: We put it into testing first anyway, so the permission to move them to core is not really a blocker here. Allan, how do we chosse packages? I could easily do a query like "show me all packages which are older than xx" etc.. Just let me know. -- Pierre Schmitz, https://users.archlinux.de/~pierre
On 18/11/10 21:00, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:24:33 +0100, Andrea Scarpino <andrea@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thursday 18 November 2010 07:20:54 Daniel Isenmann wrote:
That's right, I made such a rebuild script. But I'm not really sure if I have it any longer. Have to check it at home. It was a hackish bash script which increased the pkgrel variable and rebuild the package, that's all. We have to use the package() function and to remove the ||return 1 stuff. I don't think that do this job with a script is a good idea.
Anyway, count on me for this rebuild.
Dito, could help also. Btw: We put it into testing first anyway, so the permission to move them to core is not really a blocker here.
Allan, how do we chosse packages? I could easily do a query like "show me all packages which are older than xx" etc.. Just let me know.
I have a list that I will put somewhere with all packages that are not .xz format (except those that need to stay .gz) and not in the package pool directory sorted by date since last built. I will dump it to a TODO list/wiki page at some stage. Allan
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:14:20 +1000, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
On 18/11/10 21:00, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:24:33 +0100, Andrea Scarpino <andrea@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Thursday 18 November 2010 07:20:54 Daniel Isenmann wrote:
That's right, I made such a rebuild script. But I'm not really sure if I have it any longer. Have to check it at home. It was a hackish bash script which increased the pkgrel variable and rebuild the package, that's all. We have to use the package() function and to remove the ||return 1 stuff. I don't think that do this job with a script is a good idea.
Anyway, count on me for this rebuild.
Dito, could help also. Btw: We put it into testing first anyway, so the permission to move them to core is not really a blocker here.
Allan, how do we chosse packages? I could easily do a query like "show me all packages which are older than xx" etc.. Just let me know.
I have a list that I will put somewhere with all packages that are not .xz format (except those that need to stay .gz) and not in the package pool directory sorted by date since last built. I will dump it to a TODO list/wiki page at some stage.
Allan
I'd say just create a todo list and maybe create a check list about what to do with those packages then. (e.g. package functions, removing || return 1 or look for an update in general.) -- Pierre Schmitz, https://users.archlinux.de/~pierre
I made a wiki page with a list of packages to be rebuilt and added a bit of annotation: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/User:Allan/Core_Rebuild_List I did not use the usual TODO list as I think the order and annotation is important and the fact that this is not a usual rebuild as there is no timeline on when it should really be done. But if people want a real TODO list, I can create it with a link to that wiki page. Allan
On Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:30:19 +1000, Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org> wrote:
I made a wiki page with a list of packages to be rebuilt and added a bit of annotation: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/User:Allan/Core_Rebuild_List
I did not use the usual TODO list as I think the order and annotation is important and the fact that this is not a usual rebuild as there is no timeline on when it should really be done. But if people want a real TODO list, I can create it with a link to that wiki page.
Allan
Thanks for setting this up. In general its a good idea to review and cleanup our core repo on a regular base. -- Pierre Schmitz, https://users.archlinux.de/~pierre
participants (5)
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Allan McRae
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Andrea Scarpino
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Andreas Radke
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Daniel Isenmann
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Pierre Schmitz