[Rd] R 4.0.0 build error with sysdata.rda on ppc64el architecture

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

The R 4.0.0 package migration on Debian is being held back by a failed build
on ppc64el [1]. We can see from the history of builds logs [2] that it used
to build, briefly failed, worked again and then failed leading to R 4.0.0's
release. (And my bad for missing how the alpha1/alpha2/beta/rc builds failed.)

I have however neither changed anything, nor did I ever have to accomodate
ppc64el (as it has happened with other platforms in the past).

The automated build gets killed after 150 mins at

make[7]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/src/library/tools/src'
mkdir -p -- ../../../../library/tools/libs
make[7]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/src/library/tools/src'
make[6]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/src/library/tools/src'
make[5]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/src/library/tools'
make[5]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/src/library/tools'
installing 'sysdata.rda'
E: Build killed with signal TERM after 150 minutes of inactivity

as can be seen in [3]. The Debian wiki has pointers for getting a shell
account on such platforms [4] (and that is not limited to Debianers but a
'Minipower' service).  I now have one such account on the VM farm at Unicamp
[5] in Brazil. It uses OpenStack (slick, never used it before) and I just
provisioned a reasonably beefy machine, booted from one of the available OSs
(Ubuntu 20.04), installed the build-dependencies and ... am now hanging at
the exact same spot:

make[7]: Entering directory '/home/ubuntu/git/r-base/src/library/tools/src'
mkdir -p -- ../../../../library/tools/libs
make[7]: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/git/r-base/src/library/tools/src'
make[6]: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/git/r-base/src/library/tools/src'
make[5]: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/git/r-base/src/library/tools'
make[5]: Entering directory '/home/ubuntu/git/r-base/src/library/tools'
installing 'sysdata.rda'

So at least it reproduces. But how do we go about addressing this? Why would
it be looping infinitely trying to assemble sysdata.rda?

Any hints or suggestions or debug flags I should set?

Thanks in advance for any pointers,  Dirk


[1] https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=r-base&suite=experimental
[2] https://buildd.debian.org/status/logs.php?pkg=r-base&arch=ppc64el
[3] https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=r-base&arch=ppc64el&ver=4.0.0-1&stamp=1587737274&raw=0
[4] https://wiki.debian.org/ppc64el
[5] https://openpower.ic.unicamp.br/minicloud/

-- 
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org