Hi, We have bootstrap binaries for various platforms. For example, commit 3b88f3767d9f3ad2cc64173525cd53d429bfe7e7 adds bootstrap binaries for aarch64-linux. Judging by the commit message, my guess is that these bootstrap binaries were built (cross-compiled, I presume) using Guix at commit 8f8f250bdca917b3ce38aa0902f01b19081859a4 and then checked into the Git repository.
My understanding is that we could choose, in theory, to cross-compile the bootstrap binaries from a "base" platform. This choice would reduce the number of bootstrap binaries we need to check into the Git repository. However, my guess is that we do not want to treat one particular platform as special: we would like to be able to bootstrap everything from any supported architecture. For example, it would be unfortunate if bootstrapping an armhf-linux machine required the use of an x86_64-linux machine. To avoid this "asymmetry" in the bootstrap path, we choose to check in the built artifacts instead of cross-compiling them. Is my understanding correct? I couldn't find an explicit explanation of the motivation for this choice by looking at email archives, source code, or the manual, so I thought I'd ask here. -- Chris
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