[Nix-dev] Set up a Sufficiently Powerful Build Farm

[Paulus Esterhazy]

Just as a data point, I recently bought a new Mac Mini and it was slow
to the point of being unusable, even for office work. The machine may
have been a dud but there was nothing obviously wrong with it
physically and many Amazon reviewers reported similar experience. So
getting latest-generation Mac Minis may not be the best option (older
models are probably fine).

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Daniel Peebles <pumpkingod at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't have a good sense of how many the foundation can keep, but for now
> I'm not concerned about us having too many :) the more we get, the more
> responsive we'll be.
>
> As it stands, I think we have two (oldish) Darwin cores on Hydra today, so
> when my 4-core box arrives (assuming it works well) it should give us more
> than 3x the current power :) I paid $589 for it and another $55 for shipping
> from the US. Most of the ones for sale on eBay are the newer (but not
> newest) generation and are thus a bit more expensive than the one I got.
>
> I think we'd be in a reasonably comfortable place if we could get 3 or 4
> more of those boxes, but if we could get more I obviously wouldn't complain.
>
> I'd love for us to have Darwin be a nearly first-class citizen of nixpkgs,
> but potential adopters (and thus contributors) are going to be turned off if
> they need to recompile the world if they get anywhere near master.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 9:16 AM, Christian Theune <ct at flyingcircus.io>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 22 Dec 2015, at 14:57, Daniel Peebles <pumpkingod at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I spoke with Rob Vermaas about donating Darwin machines and we decided
>> that the hosted Mac options were indeed too expensive. As far as I could
>> tell, the best Mac compute power for the money is a Mac Mini from the
>> previous generation (or the one before it) since they had 4-core i7 CPUs
>> back then (the more recent ones only have 2-core CPUs and often i5s unless
>> you spend lots of money).
>>
>> I bought one of those older Mac Minis off eBay as a donation to the NixOS
>> foundation, and once it ships to them they will manage the machine as part
>> of the main Hydra cluster.
>>
>> It would sometimes be more appealing to host the machines ourselves, but
>> unfortunately there are all sorts of trust issues there which we haven't yet
>> solved, so I think the best bet for now if you want Darwin Hydra to get
>> stronger is either to donate to the foundation so they can buy more (Darwin)
>> build boxes, or to donate hardware directly as I did.
>>
>>
>> Thanks. If that’s feasible and works for the guys maintaining the hardware
>> at the farm then I wonder: do we have an estimate how many machines would
>> make an impact or should we try adding a bunch more? Or just wait for yours
>> to arrive?
>>
>> How much did you pay for the mac mini you managed to get?
>>
>> Christian
>>
>> --
>> Christian Theune · ct at flyingcircus.io · +49 345 219401 0
>> Flying Circus Internet Operations GmbH · http://flyingcircus.io
>> Forsterstraße 29 · 06112 Halle (Saale) · Deutschland
>> HR Stendal HRB 21169 · Geschäftsführer: Christian. Theune, Christian.
>> Zagrodnick
>>
>
>
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