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From: William Pitcock <nenolod@dereferenced.org>
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2017 18:17:58 -0500
Message-ID: <CA+T2pCEhNMT2x6=L7JZ3nx=3WJZ6ZJiTBJCP7UAv2uGhOkRLpg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] A few questions about Alpine
To: "A. Wilcox" <awilfox@adelielinux.org>
Cc: alpine-dev <alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>
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Hello,

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 5:27 AM, A. Wilcox <awilfox@adelielinux.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Hello Alpine developers,
>
> I=E2=80=99m A. Wilcox, the leader of the Ad=C3=A9lie Linux distribution. =
 We are a
> distribution which, like Alpine, use the musl libc.  We are presently
> using Gentoo=E2=80=99s Portage system for package building, but unfortuna=
tely
> we feel that the Gentoo ecosystem is no longer suitable for use.
>
>
> Our goals for Ad=C3=A9lie are as follows:
>
> - - A lightweight desktop distribution that is user-friendly while still
> remaining a powerful Linux system underneath, built on technologies
> like the musl libc.
>
> - - Support for many CPU architectures including some that Alpine does
> not yet support (we already have PPC32 and experimental MIPS support).
>
> - - The ability for users to build some packages the way they want while
> still remaining a binary-first distribution (like FreeBSD=E2=80=99s ports=
 vs
> pkg).
>
>
> As such, we are considering =E2=80=9Crebasing=E2=80=9D our distribution o=
n Alpine
> Linux.  We have a few questions and ideas to think about before we
> would go ahead.
>
>
> 1. If we had either a different set of patches for a package, or our
> patches allowed different features in a package to be built that are
> currently unavailable in Alpine, would Alpine be willing to evaluate
> including them in the Alpine APKBUILD?

Yes, absolutely.

> 2. Does the abuild utility support multiple repositories of packages?
>  How are build-time dependencies resolved in abuild?  If we had our
> own mesa package, for an example, would abuild be able to build
> against ours when we build packages from the Alpine package tree?  Or
> would we need to maintain a fork of the Alpine tree and maintain our
> changes in the same tree?

abuild has no repository awareness at all.  It just looks at APKBUILD files=
.
We use aports-build to run the buildservers which generate the actual repos=
.

> 3. Would support for build-time configuration settings (like FreeBSD=E2=
=80=99s
> ports OPTIONS or Gentoo=E2=80=99s portage USE) be welcomed in abuild?  Th=
is
> would allow us (and our users) to build packages how we want while
> still having the defaults remain the same in Alpine upstream.

Yes, this is a planned feature already.  We just haven't gotten around
to making a spec for how it will look in an APKBUILD.

> 4. Is Alpine interested in ports to other architectures supported by
> musl including PPC32 and MIPS?

Yes.  We would like to have all architectures supported by musl as
release architectures.
I am planning on doing MIPS64 in the 3.7 release series.

> 5. Would support for alternative shells in abuild be a welcome
> addition (allowing abuild to run in shells including Busybox, bash,
> zsh, etc)?  These changes would only be to more firmly align abuild
> with the POSIX shell standard where applicable.

This is probably OK, as long as it retains compatibility with Alpine's /bin=
/sh.

> 6. Would there be any interest in jointly creating some user-facing
> utilities to make the abuild experience a more pleasant one for users?

We are open to proposals to do so, as the point was to enable such
things in the first place.

William


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