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diff --git a/website/posts/state-of-aarch64-on-guix.md b/website/posts/state-of-aarch64-on-guix.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d034ffc --- /dev/null +++ b/website/posts/state-of-aarch64-on-guix.md @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +title: State of aarch64 on Guix +date: 2017-07-24 15:30 +author: Efraim Flashner +tags: architectures +--- +Since the recent 0.13.0 release, Guix supports building software for +aarch64 (64-bit ARM architecture). Here’s the current status. + +Currently aarch64 support in Guix is pretty good, as long as you don't +mind compiling for yourself :). Potential downfalls are too little RAM +(I limited my boards to 2GB minimum) and using an SD card. For building +packages I made sure that between RAM and swap I have at least 6 GB, +which I don't recall giving me any issues. + +There were problems with actually building the Guix binary in time for +the 0.13 release. It has since been fixed and I have an unoffical +aarch64 binary install tarball at http://flashner.co.il/~efraim/. Also there is +the signing key for my odroid running +[`guix publish`](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Invoking-guix-publish.html). +The URL of my `guix publish` server is `http://git.flashner.co.il:8181`. + +General problem points/packages: + + - Java is currently out, `sablevm-classpath` doesn't compile, so currently +there is no path for Java. A quick check showed about 140 packages +depend on `sablevm-classpath`. + - Go: go-1.4.x doesn't support aarch64 (or mips). I have a patch against +our GCC to build gccgo, and it produces a `go` binary, but it fails to +actually build anything. When I checked Debian I saw they cross-compile +their arm64 `go` binary from amd64. I believe there may be an issue with +using gccgo and linking against glibc. + - OCaml 4.01.0: Doesn't build on aarch64, haven't investigated. + - Julia: aarch64 is officially supported, but it has only been tested on +superpowerful boards, like the ThunderX. I haven't gotten it to build +yet. The issue is related to `__fp16`. + - clisp: our current version doesn't build on aarch64, there isn't +support yet. There are newer builds but no offical release yet, and I +haven't tested those yet. + - gprolog: No upstream support and AFAICT no one is working on it. + - LDC: 1.x is supposed to support aarch64, 0.17.x, aka ldc-bootstrap, +doesn't, it fails while compiling phobos, which has no aarch64 support +in that version. + - Rust: Has upstream support, our package uses the i686 version as a +bootstrap, so only i686 and x86_64 have support in guix ATM. + - Haskell: There is no upstream aarch64 binary to use for bootstrapping. +I'm thinking of trying to use qemu-system-x86_64 as the shell and +emulate x86_64 on my aarch64 board to cross-compile it to aarch64. `guix +package -A ghc | wc -l` shows 293 packages. + - Qt 4: does not build, I've hardly put any time into it. + - Gnucash: The ancient WebKit version they use didn't build on aarch64, +I haven't tried to fix it. + - Linux-libre: While many boards do require specific patches and + versions of the kernel, there have been great increases in recent + kernel versions for many ARM boards. It remains to be seen how much + support these boards have after the kernel has been deblobbed. + +It sounds like its all doom and gloom, but its not too bad. `guix +package -A | wc -l` shows me 5,341 (5,208 without `sablevm-classpath`), +compared with ~5,600 on x86_64. Most of the difference is Haskell. In +addition, I personally believe that aarch64 actually has fewer +packages that fail to build than armhf. + +Currently the project’s build farm lacks aarch64 build machines. If you +would like to help, +please [get in touch with us](https://gnu.org/software/guix/donate/)! + + +#### About GNU Guix + +[GNU Guix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix) is a transactional package +manager for the GNU system. The Guix System Distribution or GuixSD is +an advanced distribution of the GNU system that relies on GNU Guix and +[respects the user's +freedom](https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html). + +In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports +transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, +per-user profiles, and garbage collection. Guix uses low-level +mechanisms from the Nix package manager, except that packages are +defined as native [Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile) modules, +using extensions to the [Scheme](http://schemers.org) language. GuixSD +offers a declarative approach to operating system configuration +management, and is highly customizable and hackable. + +GuixSD can be used on an i686 or x86_64 machine. It is also possible to +use Guix on top of an already installed GNU/Linux system, including on +mips64el, armv7, and aarch64. + |