Re: Pre-built binaries vs. performance

[Ludovic Courtès]

Fis Trivial <address@hidden> skribis:

> So, we can build packages in a generic way, and then provide optional
> dependencies.
> In this case, we treat SSE as default dependency and AVX2 as an optional
> dependency, let users specify whether they want it or not.
> AVX2 need not to be actual packages, it's just an abstraction.
>
> It's just a thought that we can abstract architecture as part of the
> dependency graph.

We do that in the form of the “system type”—“x86_64-linux”, etc.  That
captures what’s otherwise not captured in the graph: the architecture
and the kernel.

Someone proposed having, say, “x86_64avx2-linux”, which is similar in
spirit to what you’re proposing, I think.  However that’d be
inconvenient because every single package in the graph would have to be
rebuilt compared to “x86_64-linux”.

Also, I don’t see how to make that an _optional_ dependency.

Thanks,
Ludo’.