Re: appropriate architectures for packages
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, Carlo Segre wrote:
> For example, my package, fit2k, is a peak fitting GUI program which
> uses wxgtk and the boost libraries. This is a very time intensive
> package to compile and it has been known to hang some of the buildds
> for many many minutes, resulting in a failed build. This begs the
> question of whether the fityk package is of any real value to
> architectures such as m68k, arm and even mips where processors are
> older and not often used with graphical desktops. I am working on
> other packages for crystal structure solution which require even
> more resources to run effectively and this problem will only get
> worse.
>
> I am tempted to just not even bother having the buildds try to build
> for these architectures because the likelihood that someone will
> ever actually _use_ fityk is vanishingly small even though it is
> possible to do so (in principle). However, I feel a bit guilty about
> excluding them.
This really is a question for the port maintainers to answer; if you
think that they should consider not building a package for an
architecture, you should suggest it to them. However, if the package
can possibly be built for an architecture, the package maintainer
should not exclude it from being built on an architecture.
> At what point does it make no sense to expend a lot of effort to
> build a package on architectures where the are not likely to be used
> (or even usable)? Just because it _can_ be built on a particular
> architecture does it _always_ make sense to do so?
It doesn't always make sense to do so, but that's generally something
that the porters who actively use the architectures in question can
decide. They're more than capable of figuring out whether to build or
not build your software. [In the case of m68k, there are enough
buildds for it not to matter too horribly much.]
Don Armstrong
--
"...Yet terrible as UNIX addiction is, there are worse fates. If UNIX
is the heroin of operating systems, then VMS is barbiturate addiction, the
Mac is MDMA, and MS-DOS is sniffing glue. (Windows is filling your sinuses
with lucite and letting it set.) You owe the Oracle a twelve-step program."
--The Usenet Oracle
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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