Bug#907829: p4est: FTBFS on single CPU machines (?)

[Santiago Vila]

Package: src:p4est
Version: 1.1-5
Severity: serious
Tags: ftbfs

Dear maintainer:

I tried to build this package in buster but it failed:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
 debian/rules build-arch
dh build-arch
   dh_update_autotools_config -a
   debian/rules override_dh_autoreconf
make[1]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>'
echo 1.1 > .tarball-version
echo 1.1 > sc/.tarball-version
dh_autoreconf ./bootstrap
Running bootstrap in subdirectory sc
--- This is the bootstrap script for libsc ---
It is NOT required to run bootstrap to build from a tar.gz archive
Development requires a libtool recent enough to contain LT_INIT (2.2 works)
Current directory is /<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/sc
libtoolize: putting auxiliary files in AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, 'build-aux'.

[... snipped ...]

  ./test/sc_test_sort

Either request fewer slots for your application, or make more slots available
for use.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAIL test/sc_test_sort (exit status: 1)

FAIL: test/sc_test_sortb
========================

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are not enough slots available in the system to satisfy the 2 slots
that were requested by the application:
  ./test/sc_test_sortb

Either request fewer slots for your application, or make more slots available
for use.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAIL test/sc_test_sortb (exit status: 1)

============================================================================
Testsuite summary for libsc 1.1
============================================================================
# TOTAL: 12
# PASS:  0
# SKIP:  0
# XFAIL: 0
# FAIL:  12
# XPASS: 0
# ERROR: 0
============================================================================
See ./test-suite.log
Please report to p4est at librelist.com
============================================================================
make[4]: *** [Makefile:2031: test-suite.log] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/sc'
make[3]: *** [Makefile:2139: check-TESTS] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/sc'
make[2]: *** [Makefile:2426: check-am] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/sc'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:3388: check-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>'
dh_auto_test: make -j1 check VERBOSE=1 returned exit code 2
make: *** [debian/rules:8: build-arch] Error 2
dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules build-arch subprocess returned exit status 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To reproduce, please try building with sbuild on a single-CPU machine, as I did.

The error message (not enough slots available) suggests that this package is
not ready to be built on single-CPU machines.

If this is really a bug in one of the build-depends, please use reassign and affects,
so that this is still visible in the BTS web page for this package.

My guess is that this is a bug in p4est but it's triggered by a build depends
which changed behaviour somewhere between 2017-12-24 (where version 1.1-5
still built ok for me in buster) and 2018-06-03 (where it did not anymore).

Thanks.