F20 System Wide Change: ARM as primary Architecture

[Peter Robinson]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 1:28 PM, Aleksandar Kurtakov
<akurtako at redhat.com> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Josh Boyer" <jwboyer at gmail.com>
>> To: "Development discussions related to Fedora" <devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:45:53 PM
>> Subject: Re: F20 System Wide Change: ARM as primary Architecture
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 6:02 AM, Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik at redhat.com> wrote:
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >> Adam Williamson (awilliam at redhat.com) said:
>> >> > I've had an entry on my todo list _forever_ to complete the
>> >> > 'deliverables SOP' I started several releases ago:
>> >> >
>> >> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Adamwill/Draft_releng_SOP_deliverables
>> >> >
>> >> > (I don't really like the current layout, I was planning on revising it)
>> >> >
>> >> > The addition of a new arch with quite a pile of 'supported images'
>> >> > would certainly raise the priority of having such a thing. (We're
>> >> > already hitting a problem with our *current* primary arches in this
>> >> > area, though, in that the status of the multi-live, multi-arch and
>> >> > cloud/appliance images is rather unclear).
>> >>
>> >> Plus, in relation to this - the llvmpipe issue brings up that one of
>> >> the 'release blocking desktops' *does not work*. This would, by
>> >> definition,
>> >> block the release unless we intend to have different criteria for ARM as a
>> >> primary arch.
>> >
>> > I don't see a problem with different set of blocking desktops for ARM, even
>> > as primary architecture. But it's really about resources - do we have
>> > people
>> > willing to work for example on LXDE (I'd say more resources friendly for
>> > current ARMs) - not saying there are no people, but more to support it as
>> > blocking desktop, if QA would be able to validate three desktops on two
>> > different platforms... And as we try to avoid "default" world in Fedora
>> > now,
>> > let's have LXDE "default" in some cases.
>>
>> Is LXDE considered a release blocking desktop?  I honestly don't know.
>>  I also don't think it matters whether LXDE or FVMW2 or Gnome is the
>> default desktop on ARM.  The criteria should probably be that it ships
>> with a desktop that is considered release blocking.  If LXDE isn't
>> one, then perhaps it should be made so.  The goal here shouldn't be
>> "we have a desktop".  It should be "we have a desktop experience that
>> is the same on all primary architectures".  To that end, whichever
>> desktop is picked should be release blocking and it should function
>> the same on all primary architectures.
>>
>> > For build times, Dennis has numbers prepared, we decided to let it out of
>> > the proposal and send it for discussion.
>>
>> There was significant concern on this during the first time this came
>> up for discussion.  I think the proposal should at least include a
>> link to the overall build time improvements.  Clearly there has been
>> improvement, so make the proposal show that.
>
> I still have serious concerns regarding build times:
> * arm - https://arm.koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=150248 ~ 17h
> * current primary - https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=429023 ~1h 30m
>
> This is still too huge gap - roughly 10 times slower. If ARM will become primary arch I hope this is an exception and not the general rule.

That build gap is due to java not being the fully accelerated one, I
know there's work being done there but it's been a while since I heard
the latest state, the last of which was "soon"

Peter