Update SmartOS machines

[targos]

Related to #4091

We've had SmartOS 23 since almost two years. I don't know what that corresponds to (SmartOS releases seem to be numbered by date) but I guess there's room for updating to more recent OS and toolchains?

@nodejs/platform-smartos

[danmcd]

Quick&immediate answer: "SmartOS 23" means: "SmartOS zone that has pkgsrc 23.4 as its beyond-SmartOS software source." SmartOS native zones are generated around a LTS pkgsrc source of beyond-SmartOS bits. SmartOS itself it builds on pkgsrc 24.4 and will be until likely 27.4. We should probably make available a "SmartOS 24" for you since it'll be good for a while in any SmartOS built since 2024 if not even earlier (illumos's binary-compatibility is very well documented and enforced).

. . .

For requirements in compilers (say moving off gcc) it may require more work in SmartOS OR it may require building NodeJS for illumos in a different distro. Because of illumos's nature (see item 1 below) we have multiple ways to approach getting illumos & distros to keep up.

This is an opportunity for multiple good things to happen, I think:

1.) Educate folks (like this NodeJS project) about illumos, its distros, and how we can help. SmartOS is an illumos distro, but the work we do benefits all illumos. NodeJS gets built in different ways on different illumos distros. We can help make things easier to grasp, I think. Our distros differ less than Linux ones (where you have to interrogate which libc you're using, where in illumos libc is provided and the interface for illumos, not just "the kernel"). See my pinned Fediverse post for a picture: https://hostux.social/@danmcd/111126696879472728 . illumos just proceeds. Distros roll out with more regular, but differing, cadences: OmniOS does the supported & LTS increments, SmartOS does every two weeks, plus every 8 weeks one goes out with our Triton Data Center releases concurrently. I'm not sure what OI does.

2.) See if we have any shortcomings in illumos, or perhaps individual distros, that need to be addressed to keep NodeJS going. For example, there was an illumos fix to madvise() header definitions in the past couple of years that made ALL illumos distros behave better (I wish Google would suck it into their upstream V8!!!). Currently I'm worried about LLVM support. People like pkgsrc's @jperkin can help. I have contacted OmniOS and OpenIndiana too in case they have people I should mention here.

[targos]

I see Clang and LLVM at version 19.1.7 on https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/index-all.html
This would be enough for Node.js today.

[danmcd]

clang/llvm today on illumos bootstraps off of gcc libraries. @jperkin can explain it better than I can. He mentioned this to me today:

re llvm, I haven't tested the state of clang on illumos in a long time, it's
pretty much tied to gcc libraries now that they ripped illumos support
out of libcxx but hopefully the front-end at least still works, it just won't
be well integrated (so ok for testing builds, useless for shipping software)

[danmcd]

OmniOS may have better news to report: I'm pinging @hadfl from there to see what he has to say.

[citrus-it]

clang/llvm seems to be in pretty good shape on OmniOS. We ship packages for all versions from 13 to 22.
We build a number of the distribution's "extra" packages with clang, a fair number of which use C++. We also use clang to cross-compile software for OmniOS aarch64.

Oxide also build at least Clickhouse with clang-17 in conjunction with gcc-13 libstdc++ - that's on Helios, another illumos distribution. Clickhouse is a pretty large complex C++ application.

[sxa]

I'll also ping @ptribble whose Tribblix distribution is also based on Illumos in case he has any input to this discussion in terms of clang etc.

Also ref the Temporal support does anyone know what the status (if any) of rust is on Illumos-based distributions??

[sxa]

(Side note, here is a picture of me with my Illumos mug which I picked up at FOSDEM a few years ago from @ptribble ;-) )

[ptribble]

In general clang is good; Tribblix just ships one version at the moment (18, as it happens) but could package any version needed. OpenIndiana has clang 16 and 18-21.

As for rust, it's a first class citizen om illumos, so again good. (That isn't to say that there aren't non-portable crates out there, but rust itself isn't a problem.)

[targos]

How do we proceed? We currently have smartos22 and smartos23 hosts connected to Jenkins. How should that evolve and who can make it happen?

[danmcd]

Please email me and @jperkin . Next week is an 8-week-cycle Triton release so we're gonna be a bit swamped.

We might want to put you on a pkgsrc 25.4 zone, AND/OR set you up with a more generic illumos environment like OmniOS for future builds.

[targos]

@ryanaslett Is it something that you can lead?