[pypy-dev] pypy 64 bit Ubuntu packages

[Stefano Rivera]

Sorry, I only got around to joining this list after this thread had
already kicked off.

Hi everyone, I'm Debian & Ubuntu Developer interested in PyPy (and
recently got commit access here, but haven't done much with that, yet).

I've got a new PyPy package *just* landed in Debian experimental [0].

[0]: http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pypy/news/20120113T213634Z.html

> Between 2007-05 and 2009-08 there appears to have been a PyPy package
> in Debian Unstable though it never made it to Testing (migrating and
> being immediately removed doesn't count).

I wasn't involved at the time, but here's what I know.

PyPy was intentionally kept out of testing by its maintainer (according
to the bug, in consultation with upstream)
http://bugs.debian.org/486675

> Is it known why PyPy was removed from Debian Unstable?

See the removal request [1]. It references the RC bugs at the time,
which can be found amongst its archived bugs [2].

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/538858
[2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?archive=both;src=pypy

Generally, I think the issues were that PyPy was hard to build on many
architectures (due to the massive RAM requirements), and insufficiently
mature. Debian supports stable releases for ~3 years, we try and keep
things that aren't ready for that out of stable releases.

I didn't get any responses from the previous maintainers, when asking if
they thought bringing PyPy back was a reasonable idea. So I just went
ahead and did it. Let's see how it works out...

> Is it possible to get it back into Debian?

In progress, and I'd appreciate help.

As it stands at the moment, it's usable with a (patched [3]) virtualenv,
but I want to go further.  I'm keen to support PyPy as an equal
interpreter to cpython, in Debian (i.e. have it work with packaged
python modules). That would be a first for an alternative python
implementation, in Debian, but require a fair amount of work.

[3]: https://github.com/stefanor/virtualenv/tree/pypy

In the meantime, I want to get it building on as many architectures as
possible (Debian supports rather a few), and sort out all the test
failures we'll see on them. I also have a fair number of out-of-tree
PyPy patches applied [4] (e.g. PEP3147 support), that I must see about
upstreaming.

[4]: http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pypy.git;a=tree;f=debian/patches

It's in experimental, so people can have a bit of a play with it, and we
can sort out all the obvious problems, before we start getting too
committed to the packaging approaches I've taken.
So, please try it.

> Debian packagers would package separately for 32-bit and 64-bit and
> thus the whole Ubuntu problem in the Launchpad PPA would go away.

Correct. In fact, it'll build separately for all supported Debian
architectures
https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=pypy&suite=experimental

> More importantly (for me an many others) PyPy would be part of the
> Debian distribution.

In time...

> If PyPy were in Debian Testing then it would almost certainly be in
> Ubuntu.

I'm interested in including it in 12.04, as a "technical preview". But I
still need to have that discussion with the rest of the Ubuntu Release
team. And I want to get some feedback on it in Debian experimental,
first.


Now, to respond to the original thread:

kgardenia42 said:
> However, even though these packages have a target architecture of
> "all" when I install them on an amd64 Ubuntu machine I am unable to
> run the pypy binary.  I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that this is
> because it is a 32bit binary

Correct, that PPA is doing things wrong. Architecture "all" packages are
architecture-independent.

SR

-- 
Stefano Rivera
  http://tumbleweed.org.za/
  H: +27 21 465 6908 C: +27 72 419 8559  UCT: x3127