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Sync meeting on EESSI compat layer (2023 03 07)

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Apr 6, 2023 · 1 revision

EESSI sync meeting on compat layer (2023-03-07)

Attending

  • Alexander, Bart, Kenneth, Thomas, Killian, Jörg, Alex, Guilherme, Bob

Notes

  • Approach at The Alliance
    • mostly done by Bart, with some helps with colleagues
    • their compat layer is a superset of what we include in EESSI compat layer
    • some changes are made for next compat layer based on lessons learned
    • Canadian compat layer is "frozen in time" (currently March 2020)
    • using custom profile (incl. in overlay)
  • Collaborating
    • Have some more people involved in the setup and maintenance of the compatibility layers
    • Collaborate with the Alliance and Gentoo
    • Collaborate on maintaining ebuilds?
      • ebuilds used by The Alliance sometimes need to backported to older EAPI (copied from Gentoo upstream)
        • often as simple as just changing EAPI=8 to EAPI=7
        • another way could be to only update Portage without doing a full update
      • maybe better to push our ebuilds back upstream to Gentoo
        • especially for stuff that's not patched or in any way specific to EESSI
        • can be done by pull requests to Gentoo mirror in GitHub
        • may need to ping correct person if there's no response
        • for Prefix-related stuff, can tag Guilherme or Sam
      • can consider going through process to become a Gentoo developer
    • Regular call (e.g. monthly?) to discuss open issues?
      • 1st Tuesday of the month, 13:00 CE(S)T
    • Try to keep overview of contributions/bugs/PRs related to EESSI + The Alliance?
  • Status update on new EESSI compat layer version (2023.03)
    • x86_64: works (thanks to Bart's PR https://github.com/gentoo/prefix/pull/22)
    • aarch64: blocked by missing profile (cfr. https://bugs.gentoo.org/892876)
      • Bob has made some good progress on this, mostly working now
      • was not a problem when bootstrapping Prefix for EESSI pilot 2021.12
      • seems to have been caused by recent changes related to cross-compiling
    • ppc64le: will try to build, include if it works, skip for EESSI pilot 2023.03 if it doesn't work
    • riscv64: Prefix bootstrap doesn't work (anymore)
    • Bart: open problem that is silently being ignored (will open Gentoo bug for this), one more issue to fix in the bootstrap/glibc: 
      /home/oldeman/eessi3/usr/sbin/locale-gen: line 168: /home/oldeman/eessi3usr/bin/localedef: No such file or directory
  • CI for / better testing of Prefix
  • What should go into the compatibility layer, and what should not?
    • Editors, debuggers, tools like htop, or even desktop environments, etc?
    • Balance between thin compat layer (makes security updates less painful) and fat compat layer (batteries included)
    • Should we remove build dependencies/tools after the bootstrap to prevent issues/clashes with the same tools from the software layer and to make it more clear for users? CMake, Ninja, Meson (https://github.com/EESSI/compatibility-layer/issues/139), maybe even pip?
    • Alex: maybe there should be a separate compat layer for building (fatter) vs user-facing (stripped down)
      • could even remove Python from compat layer used to support software layer
      • but EasyBuild (incl. in software layer) requires Python...
      • The Alliance relies on compat layer to provide a bunch of things that may not be provided by the OS (especially in diskless systems with very limited OS)
        • incl. MATE desktop environment, VNC, etc.
      • EESSI should write out clear policy on what is incluced in EESSI
        • also clearly state what the goal is of our compat layer
        • currently, mainly there to support whatever is included in software layer
        • can be revisited later, for example to also have a desktop environment in there like The Alliance does
  • Security updates
  • Best way to deal with host dependencies
  • Ideas for EESSI
    • also start using our own profile, like The Alliance does
  • Notes
    • Bart is working on a hack related to /var (?)
      • may be difficult to push back upstream
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