On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 11:07 AM, Tobias Klausmann <klaus...@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hi! > > This got a bit rambly, sorry 'bout that. > > tl;dr: Continuous Integration is a neat idea if you have the > Hardware. The off-mainstream arch teams don't. > Clearly because we cannot be perfect, we should not even try! Realistically aside from the major arches none of the other arches have large userbases. I think quality for the sake of quality is pretty silly; but if we can improve the quality of arches where hardware is readily available we should do so (regardless of minority architecture objections.) -A > > > On Tue, 07 Jul 2015, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: > > On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 08:04:47 +0800 > > Patrick Lauer <patr...@gentoo.org> wrote: > > > I'll laugh about it next time I update OpenFOAM: > > > > > > Fri Jun 27 12:52:19 2014 >>> sci-libs/openfoam-2.3.0 > > > merge time: 1 hour, 5 minutes and 8 seconds. > > > or > > > > > > Sun Jun 29 20:36:09 2014 >>> sci-mathematics/nusmv-2.5.4 > > > merge time: 2 hours, 58 minutes. > > > > What's the problem? Better the build bot wastes that time once than a > > whole bunch of users do. > > Just be aware that that Just Won't Happen for the off-mainstream > archs. We just don't have the hardware to keep up with something > like that. Unless you want to employ several people reordering > the CI checks so a test for glibc doesn't make mutt, util-linux, > iptables and 55 other packages wait for hours. > > 'Cause invariably, if the CI system is delayed beyond the > expectation for the package itself, it will be ignored. > > It would also mean that the other purposes the devboxes are used > for will be delayed non-trivially. In the case of Alpha, that > would for example be upstream gcc testing, and stage3 building. I > am sure arches like PPC64, IA64 and so on have the same problem. > > > > That's without dependencies, so from a clean minimal starting point > > > (once you figure out what useflags are needed) you're looking at 12+ > > > hours of walltime to get that checked. (On a reasonably modern Xeon > > > with SSDs ...) > > > > Uh, no, because you use binary packages for the dependencies, and you > > use a package mangler that can figure out the use flags for you. > > Even with binary package usage (which is not as efficient as it > could be due to USE flags), testing Qt4 (as in compile it and run > the test suite, which is the bare minimum) took me close to 10 > hours the other day. Not including fixing fetch problems halfway > through. During this time, very little else got done on the one > devbox we have. > > > > So thanks for your intentional comedy, but let's be serious here. > > > > Exherbo's been doing all this for years, and it works rather well. The > > only comedy is that Gentoo doesn't even realise this is trivial to do > > nowadays. > > Exherbo is not supporting as many off-mainstream architectures as > we do, so the comparison is flawed at best. Yes, sure, let's run > CI for amd64 and maybe x86 and whoever else has the hardware. But > it will not speed up stabilization bugs regarding the long tail. > It might even lead to people completely ignoring the slow > architectures and the rift between amd64 and the rest becoming > yet wider. > > Don't get me wrong, abandoning Alpha and other architectures is > an option, but remember that for some of these, we are the last > distro that still provides install media and a decent (as in: > current and complete-ish) set of packages. The very fact that we > are able to let amd64 and the rest drift a bit is the reason why > we can still pull it off. > > I have considered dropping Alpha entirely (for myself, that is; > I'd resign as the arch team lead and stop working on it; the > devbox, which is soft-donated through me, would stay available). > But I would rather not, for various reasons, none of which are > technical. Then again, I'm not a Gentoo dev because it makes > sense rationally (it does, but it's not my reason). > > In essence, assuming we can "just scale" to make CI work is > ignoring the matter of the slower archs. And I suspect the "it > works on amd64, fuck everyone else" is not something we want to > pick as a motto. > > Regards, > Tobias` > > > > -- > Sent from aboard the Culture ship > GSV (System Class) Empiricist > >
