Push scripts, mash (was: Re: FESCo wants to ban direct stable pushes in Bodhi (urgent call for feedback))

[Matthew Woehlke]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:29:42 -0600, Matthew wrote:
>
>>> There are just too many -devel packages and their dependencies to be ever
>>> relevant to someone for multi-arch installs. Far more users install i686 on
>>> 64-bit CPUs, and I have doubts that x86_64 installation users do much
>>> development with i686 packages. At most they install 32-bit apps where
>>> 64-bit builds aren't available or "less good".
>>
>> You forget people developing proprietary software...
>
> Why would development of proprietary software have different requirements
> with regard to multilib installations?

...because said developers are more likely to be developing i686 
packages on x86_64.

Mostly, I disagree with your ratio of "people who need multilib" versus 
"people for whom multilib causes problems" differently. Probably because 
I need multilib and have never experienced multilib-related problems (or 
if I have, they were so trivial as to be thoroughly forgettable).

>> Multilib is useful if you want to build the 32-bit version of
>> something on an x86_64 box (and don't want to set up a full chroot
>> / VM).
>
> The "don't want to" is questionable. Development of the 32-bit version
> would still need a full 32-bit test installation.

A test installation of /what you built/, yes. And you have that, since 
you just built it. (From that, I guess that you consider testing of a 
32-bit program invalid unless done on a pure 32-bit kernel? I sure don't.)

> It need not be the x86_64 box to do full multi-booting instead of
> VM, but even multi-booting would be convenient enough, considering
> how quickly something like Fedora can be installed. Typical
> development is not trial-and-error compilation of both 64-bit and
> 32-bit and alternating, but rather development on either arch till
> something is ready to be built for and to be tested on a different
> arch.

You obviously have a different definition of "typical" than I do.

For $DAYJOB we build both 32- and 64-bit at the same time and test both 
within the same test suite. That's my "typical". Given that Windows (go 
figure) is the only platform for which we consider 32- versus 64-bit to 
be different ports, that's not likely to change.

Multi-booting is not only inconvenient, it isn't an option. Multilib 
*is* the method we use to build and test. End of story.

-- 
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
-- 
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