Re: Release on April 18th?

[Chris Marusich]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Is it doable to have core-updates merged in the next weeks?  Or not at
> all.

Do we plan to upgrade GCC?  This is required for the powerpc64le-linux
port; see below for details.

The wip-ppc64le branch, which ports Guix to an architecture that can be
run on freedom-friendly POWER9 systems like the Talos II and Blackbird
from Raptor Computing Systems, is "almost" done, and I would really like
to try to get it into the next release if possible.

However, there is still some work to do, and I wouldn't necessarily want
to block the release just for sake of the powerpc64le-linux port.

In fact, the wip-ppc64le branch was "fully functional" for a little
while.  By "fully functional," I mean that "make check" succeeded, "make
guix-binary.powerpc64le-linux.tar.xz" succeeded, the resulting binary
could be installed on a fresh Debian ppc64le system, the binary could
successfully build and run GNU Hello, and the binary could successfully
run "guix pull", and the newly installed "guix pull" could do the same.

However, that was using glibc 2.31.  On core-updates, glibc has been
updated to 2.32, which unfortunately breaks wip-ppc64le.  To fix it, we
must upgrade GCC from 7 to 8 (or greater), and that is what we have done
on the wip-ppc64le branch (upgrade GCC to 8).  Currently, we are working
through build failures that occurred as a result, but I'm optimistic that
we can resolve those in the coming weeks.

The real question, I think, is when do we plan to upgrade GCC on
core-updates?  It's still on GCC 7.5.0.  The powerpc64le-linux port will
require GCC 8 or greater, since core-updates is now using glibc 2.32.

-- 
Chris

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