Re: [gentoo-alt] Restructuring the bootstrap (or: getting rid of gcc 4.2)

[Ruud Koolen]

On Sunday 02 February 2014 21:12:30 Jeremy Olexa wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 8:31 PM, Ruud Koolen <redlizard@g.o> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have recently been doing some cleanup work to the bootstrap script,
> > getting
> > rid of cruft here and there. My goals in this have been twofold: part of
> > the
>
> I do have to say that I respect your goals here. The essential problem is
> that bootstrapping is fragile. We all agree there. However, to introduce a
> fundamental change to the process, you will encounter resistance. Now, you
> are testing on the "easiest" platform that Gentoo Prefix supports - linux.

Very true. I've tried to do more broader testing, but I didn't get far.

> Such that there is no automated testing, I'd strongly advise that you start
> compiling a list of platforms where the "new" method works. Since you are
> the champion of this new idea, it should be your responsibility to ensure
> that there is no loss of support.

Naturally. As I said, I would certainly not try merging this stuff without the 
wire-range testing I spoke of.

> Now, the hard part is that one person does not have access to many
> platforms. I would get ahold of SLES 10&11, which has been historically, the
> hardest linux flavor to support. Ping Alan (one of our most active
> contributors over the years) to see how FreeMiNT goes. You get some access
> to solaris from Fabian (but I think there is some version open sourced?). Of
> course there is others too..
>
> Does that make sense?

Quite. I'll spend some time building a VM fleet for testing purposes, then, 
and fish around for access to the more restricted platforms.

-- Ruud