[24.05] nixos/release: drop i686-linux support #266164
Conversation
At the time of writing, an increased source of failure in our CI is related to i686-linux. While I do wish to support 32 bits x86 system further, the reality is that we cannot identify in our community maintainers for `i686-linux` that can provide continuous maintenance for our i686-linux packages. As a matter of fact, `i686-linux` is probably broken in nixpkgs, we decide to rip off the band-aid and drop the support. Next steps could involve to extract a core package set of nixpkgs / NixOS in an out-of-tree repository to offer a simple 32 bits NixOS support with a cache or to find maintainers who are willing to work on i686 support.
|
Note: dropping the i686 ISO would need also changes elsewhere – at least
I think it's a good direction to at least reduce the amount of i686 NixOS tests, but I'm not sure how far to go. We surely want to keep building (and caching) some i686 packages. |
Why === * flake.nix had a lot of almost redundant lines in it. * i686 support is probably being dropped soon in nixpkgs NixOS/nixpkgs#266164 What changed == * Add new input nix-systems/default which represents the default systems typically used in the Nix community * Define and use an eachSystem function that simplifies the flake.nix file
|
Do you think we need some kind of wider feedback from community before proceeding with reducing i686 builds? I'm interested in this, because I believe it would noticeably ease burden on our build infra (especially the NixOS tests seem like a bad tradeoff for i686). |
No, I think we can proceed at dropping i686-linux now. |
|
Our RFC says that stdenv for i686 should be a channel blocker. That sounds fine to me, as we still want to keep building packages like wine or steam anyway. But to keep the promise, we'd need to amend the channel blocking set.
|
|
https://nixos.org/download has a link to 32-bit stable ISO. I suspect we'll forget and it will get broken on release, but I suppose it won't be a big deal. |
|
The last |
We should send a PR to the homepage to update it. |
|
This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/limited-cache-availability-for-i686-32-bits-x86-architecture/37626/1 |
Apart from being still a useful package, this keeps a basic sanity check for i686, now that we dropped the installation image, etc. Our RFC mandates that i686 stdenv is a channel blocker: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0046-platform-support-tiers.md#tier-3-1
|
I hear nothing potentially blocking this PR from merging? |
Yes feel free to proceed. |
Description of changes
Discussion for 24.05
At the time of writing, an increased source of failure in our CI is related to i686-linux.
While I do wish to support 32 bits x86 system further, the reality is that we cannot identify in our community maintainers for
i686-linuxthat can provide continuous maintenance for our i686-linux packages.As a matter of fact,
i686-linuxis probably broken in nixpkgs, we decide to rip off the band-aid and drop the support.Next steps could involve to extract a core package set of nixpkgs / NixOS in an out-of-tree repository to offer a simple 32 bits NixOS support with a cache or to find maintainers who are willing to work on i686 support.
Things done
nix.conf? (See Nix manual)sandbox = relaxedsandbox = truenix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review rev HEAD". Note: all changes have to be committed, also see nixpkgs-review usage./result/bin/)