Packages on different architectures - how easy to "translate"

Damage · January 25, 2023, 2:50pm

I’m setting up my Raspberry Pi’s and there are some packages not available for aarch64-linux that are available for x86_64-linux. So I’m thinking about creating a package.

My specific test example is fahclient which in x86_64-linux is derived from a debian package (thanks to @zimbatm for the x86 nix package) could I “just” change the source files, and edit the destination architecture? I’m making an assumption that x86-linux libraries and basic packages are available for aarch64.

The reason I ask is that the documentation I’ve seen on creating packages still confuses me somewhat, and I thought this might be a fairly easy test case to try out as a beginner, but I’m wary that there could be some very confusing error messages if my assumptions are wrong!

Thanks in advance for any reassurance or gotchas!

zimbatm · January 25, 2023, 4:56pm

Sure. I think a good example is something like this:

github.com

NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/67dc1e7751998db835c49b9085777c5c4249977a/pkgs/applications/networking/instant-messengers/armcord/default.nix#L41-L54


      
          src =
            let
              base = "https://github.com/ArmCord/ArmCord/releases/download";
            in
              {
                x86_64-linux = fetchurl {
                  url = "${base}/v${version}/ArmCord_${version}_amd64.deb";
                  sha256 = "sha256-B/zDcW43ChhnAnGL+UEAt/QChxxEpv+yMgO7WsUi84k=";
                };
                aarch64-linux = fetchurl {
                  url = "${base}/v${version}/ArmCord_${version}_arm64.deb";
                  sha256 = "sha256-cFmxs7HeF+jxtmZ827bQbRyuXhQx++x5iTIefZ55928=";
                };
              }.${stdenv.hostPlatform.system} or (throw "Unsupported system: ${stdenv.hostPlatform.system}");

Damage · January 27, 2023, 12:30pm

@zimbatm Thanks - that does look a pretty robust approach. I think I might be about to enter another nixOS rabbit hole!

Damage · February 8, 2023, 1:17am

I now have a Raspberry Pi version (it seemed trivial), but I’m a bit confused how to add/extend/modify an established app - is there a best approach? Also, more widely, how do you check it really works (rather than it seems to work on my setup, so it is fine for everyone).