In the case of dolfin, again for example, tests cover not only unit
tests but also run demo scripts. Most of the test time is in the
demos,
which take about 15 min each full set, run 4 times over [C++,
python]×[serial, mpi] making an hour in total demo time. It would
be
simple enough to run a subset of demos if we considered it important
to
reduce total test time.demo_hyperelasticity_serial
Until a huge amount of packages start to have very long running tests,
this is not a problem. Please be advised that spreading your tests
around multiple stanza in d/t/control even circumvents the 2:47h
timeout, as that timeout is *per* autopkgtest.