These assumptions conflict with the
requirements during a port of a Debian based distribution. Some source
packages must be cross compiled for a minimal build system from which
the rest can be compiled natively. Since the full distribution for the
new architecture is not yet available, dependency cycles have to be
broken during cross as well as native compilation. As support for either
is not yet part of the source package description, porting was so far a
long, manual and error-prone process.
This project aims to develop tools and techniques that make the process
of bootstrapping Debian based distributions for a new architecture from
scratch automated, repeatable and deterministic. Starting off from zero,
a minimal build system is cross compiled. Through native compilation and
breaking of build dependency cycles, the rest of the distribution is
built.
The talk will cover the current status, the techniques and algorithms
used as well as future developments of these tools and what is missing
in Debian to make bootstrapping easier in the future.