Bug#1078929: glib2.0 breaks architecture bootstrap

[Andrea Pappacoda]

Hi Helmut,

On Sat Aug 17, 2024 at 10:28 PM CEST, Helmut Grohne wrote:
> I fear we need to have another conversation about glib2.0 and 
> bootstrapping.
> [...]
> Let's look into Build-Depends and Build-Depends-Arch.
>
> [...]
> meson (>= 1.2.0),
>  -> non-trivial, Arch:all, but it pulls ninja-build and a few Python 
>     dependencies. I suspect a loop here.
> [...]
>
> I think there are two sticking issues here. One is Python. Cross 
> building Python used to work in the cross phase, but that was before 
> removing glib2.0. I expect that we also have to remove Python. The 
> other is meson. It pulls e.g. cmake via ninja-build. This definitely 
> does not just work.

I don't know much about glib2.0, especially when it comes to cross 
compiling, but I have a suggestion regarding meson and ninja-build in 
particular.

I maintain the muon package, which is a C re-implementation of Meson. 
The thing that might be useful to you is that it does not require 
python3 to run, and while it currently depends on ninja-build as well, 
it can be built with built-in samu support, which is a ninja 
re-implementation. I haven't enabled that option since in Debian we 
already have ninja-build, and I haven't saw a use case for it before 
now.

Please let me know if this could help. I'm willing to make changes to 
muon packaging in order to help you with your bootstrapping efforts. 
After all, muon's raison d'être is portability.

Bye :D