Subject: Re: bug#41669: Cross-compiled powerpc64-linux bootstrap-tarballs not reproducible

From: Leo Le Bouter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 02:28:41 +0100

Hello Ludo!

On Sat, 2020-12-19 at 23:28 -0800, Chris Marusich wrote:
> Now that we have decided to use these powerpc64 bootstrap tarballs,
> what
> are the next steps for uploading them to the GNU FTP server?  I've
> never
> done that before, and I don't think I have access.  For now I've put
> a
> signed copy of the powerpc64-linux (big endian) bootstrap tarballs,
> with
> a SHA-512 hash, here:
> 
> https://media.marusich.info/guix-ppc64-bootstrap/bootstrap-tarballs-from-guix-1ced8379c7.tar.xz
> https://media.marusich.info/guix-ppc64-bootstrap/bootstrap-tarballs-from-guix-1ced8379c7.tar.xz.asc
> https://media.marusich.info/guix-ppc64-bootstrap/bootstrap-tarballs-from-guix-1ced8379c7.tar.xz.sha512sum
> 
> For the record, these bootstrap tarballs were built via the following
> steps:
> 
> - Use
>   
> https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.2.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz
>   to install Guix System 1.2.0 on an x86_64-linux machine.
> - Run: guix pull --no-substitutes --
> commit=1ced8379c7641788fa607b19b7a66d18f045362b
> - Run: guix build --no-substitutes --target=powerpc64-linux-gnu
> bootstrap-tarballs
> - I didn't run "guix system reconfigure" after installing Guix
> System;
>   theoretically it shouldn't matter, but for the purpose of our
>   experiment, I just left the system in its default configuration in
>   order to ensure that the kernel etc. would be the same on both VMs.
> 
> Once we get these binaries into the GNU FTP server, 

Can you do it? Upload the binaries on GNU FTP server? Little endian
binaries will come along shortly as well. We decided (Chris and me)
that obsessing on this problem any longer is not going to help us
complete this port, the amount of struggle is getting very
demotivating. We got reasonable proof that this non-reproducibility GCC
problem exists and is non-trivial to solve, that's what I wanted with
the last attempts, I had hope it could still be trivial but turns out
not.

> I'll get started on
> updating gnu/packages/bootstrap.scm and other files necessary to
> begin
> bootstrapping powerpc64-linux.  I'll mainly be adapting the work that
> Leo already did, and following the lead of others like Efraim and his
> work on the wip-ppc branch.  I will probably have questions as I go,
> so
> I'll ask on guix-devel.
> 
> Please let me know if you'd like this done on a special branch.
> 

Thank you