[tlbuild] PPC builds

[Mojca Miklavec]

On 31 March 2018 at 16:45, Johannes Hielscher wrote:
> Am Sat, 31 Mar 2018 15:13:13 +0200
> schrieb Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists at gmail.com>:
>
>> > I just had a mail conversation with Karl: my debian powerpc-linux
>> > can’t compile texlive anymore (gcc is too old). So unless somebody
>> > else steps in, powerpc-linux will have to be deleted from texlive.
>> > As for “users of a (reasonably modern) Linux on PowerPC hardware,”
>> > I have never seen such a mythical beast...
>>
>> In order to compile TeX Live binaries one needs at least Debian 8,
>> while Debian 9 already dropped support for that architecture. It looks
>> like Gentoo still supports it (but honestly, I cannot imagine a Gentoo
>> user wanting third-party binaries, right? :)
>
> Actually, I am one of those (-: , and I enjoy(ed) having a single,
> central, NFS-shared TL installation serving numerous platforms,
> including Gentoo/ppc. But I don't mind the challenges to compile TL for
> myself now. I just wondered (thanks, Thomas, for the clarification).

Thomas provided binaries until this year. The above explanation is
just my personal understanding of the problem rather than his official
standpoint.

If you believe the number of such users is bigger than one, you could
probably talk to Karl about providing official binaries yourself (but
then at least make sure that those binaries work on Debian 8).

>> I also wonder if the number of of sparc-solaris users of our binaries
>> exceeds zero. Maybe we should implement some kind of big "red" warning
>> in the installer for some architectures, saying: "if you are still
>> using these binaries, please leave us feedback; if we don't get any
>> feedback, the binaries will be removed next year".
>
> I second this. Builders shouldn't have to guess if supporting some
> legacy platform is useful for people out there, or rather their
> personal hobby. Users of those platforms should know this, so let's
> encourage them to give feedback.
>
> Then, we have the platform list at
> https://www.tug.org/texlive/build.html (that has to be revised anyway).
> Perhaps, split it into active (binaries from tlnet/svn) and passive
> ports (formerly packaged, build instructions may still be useful).

What would be passive ports? I don't see any reason to explicitly list
platforms that used to be supported and have been dropped. If people
need binaries, they should simply try to build them. If they fail (and
they didn't exactly try to build with Sun Studio, Mac OS X 10.1 etc.),
it's always possible to patch sources or patch the compiler. If we
list powerpc-darwin (where I did not even manage to compile the
sources any longer) or powerpc-linux (where we have no idea whether
the sources compile) or i386-darwin (where it's only possible to
compile if you apply a bunch of patches and do some heavily
non-trivial bootstrapping to get a decent compiler on Mac OS X 10.5)
or armel-linux (where we had a super-special custom-made setup on a
mobile phone or so): what use will that be to anyone?

None of those platforms require super special instructions. OK, one
might need special instructions about how to build on Mac OS X 10.5
for example, but I have never written those anyway and don't really
intend to write them either. Users can fetch an old MacTeX or install
via MacPorts or ...

Mojca