[tlbuild] aarch64/armv8h binary distribution?

[Johannes Hielscher]

Hi,


when I got https://www.tug.org/texlive/build.html right, adding a new
architecture/platform to TeXLive binaries essentially consists of
getting the build process managed (and, of course, some willingness to
maintenance).

I am in doubt if it makes sense to include the (no longer that much
new-and-shiny) AArch64 aka ARMv8h into the list of tlmgr's platforms
(so please convince me! (-: ).
Building the binaries is obviously not that hard (I managed it, as did
the fellows at Debian, Gentoo, ArchlinuxARM, …), and it would add some
modern-ish flavour to the existing zoo of platforms (which not only
says a lot about the history of architectural diversity, but is also a
signal of what the state of support within the TL community is about).

There is a small, but increasing distribution of hackable 64-bit ARM
devices out there (RPi 3 & friends), but the software starting point
is most often a rather monolithic ecosystem, which usually brings its
own TeX installation via package management.

So I don't know if the efforts for overhead, testing, integration and
maintenance of, say, aarch64-linux into TL is in reasonable proportion
to the benefits for the few people who are not happy with what their
favourite OS package management offers (and still refrain from building
TeXLive from source).
For myself, it would not make a big difference: I let my little SBC
sweat for an hour in irregular intervals anyway, so I could also share
the binaries with the less patient out there.


Best regards,
Johannes