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

[Santiago Vila]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2018 at 01:33:30AM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 02, 2018 at 11:19:04PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:

> > This is not an architecture-specific bug which only happens on
> > unreleased architectures.
> > 
> > Instead, this happened to me on amd64, which is a release architecture.
> 
> But not on any autobuilder for a release architecture.

My autobuilder is for amd64, which is a release architecture.

Ok, my autobuilder is not one of buildd.debian.org. So what? Packages
*must* be buildable on any system where Debian itself runs (provided
there is enough RAM and disk), i.e. on any autobuilder which is not
misconfigured. Having a single CPU does not count as a "misconfiguration".

Nothing else, like CPU speed, number of CPUs, instruction set above
the baseline amd64, etc. should be assumed or taken for granted
"just because buildd.debian.org is that way".

Otherwise the package will have a hidden and undeclared
"build-depends: buildd.debian.org" (so to speak), and I would consider
such build restriction completely unacceptable.

No, we don't follow "de-facto standards", we just follow standards,
and so far we have not formally declared single-cpu systems as "unsuitable
for building" (by way of general resolution or by policy).

This single-CPU thing has been discussed before and the bugs have
never stopped being serious:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/02/msg00380.html

Please let us not have such discussion again.

And no, single-cpu is not exotic. You are only considering physical
machines, but there is a whole world of virtualization out there where
you can still choose the number of CPUs in the system, and single-cpu
is still cheaper (and I guess it will still be for a long time).

Thanks.