[Slackbuilds-users] proposal to enable building scripts on ARM

[Ruben Schuller]

Hi list,

ARM isn't going away, and slackbuilds.org supporting at least a subset
of scripts to be build on ARM would be really nice to have. I'm not
heavily invested in it, I just have some RPis with Slackware on it that
I occasionally use. Just sharing my thoughts, as it's a semi-frequently
discussed topic.

The main problem with allowing support for ARM is that the layout of
the info files would change, which could break tooling. I just had an
idea which wouldn't break any existing tools, but could enable
architecture specific information to be read by other tools (or
humans):

For each additional supported architecture other than x86 and x86_64 add
a file named ${PRGNAM}.${ARCH}info which add/override values of the
classic info file. The only additional change would be in the code to
detect architectures in the SlackBuilds, but that should be of no
relevance for tools.

Kind regards
Ruben