linux-lts515

• Path: arch/maintained/linux-lts515
• 2026-08-01: 5.15.212 -> 5.15.213, cosmetic-only config diffs (build timestamp/toolchain version strings), no Kconfig changes. Full build across all 4 archs succeeded and got signed, but repo_publish.sh lost its SSH connection to the repo host (euroweb.lan) partway through step 3/3 – host became fully unreachable (connection timed out) mid-run, not just one flaky request. Resulting remote state: linux-lts515 (main) published on all 4 archs OK. linux-lts515-docs published+repo-added on i486 only – i686/ pentium4/x86_64 never attempted. linux-lts515-headers never attempted at all (connection was already down by then). Local *.pkg.tar.zst/.sig for all 3 pkgnames x 4 archs are preserved (repo_release.sh’s cleanup only runs on success), so a plain rerun of scripts/repo_release.sh maintained/linux-lts515 once the host is reachable again should re-sign (harmless, already signed) and finish the publish/repo-add for the missing entries. No PKGBUILD changes needed, this was a pure infra outage.
• Recovering from the outage: do NOT just rerun scripts/repo_release.sh – repo_build.sh unconditionally reinvokes sudo <archbuild> per arch with no “already built” check, so it silently redoes the full kernel compile even when a valid signed package already sits in pkgdir (wasted ~1hr+ per arch, had to be killed mid-run). Instead, once local *.pkg.tar.zst/.sig already exist and are good, skip straight to scripts/repo_sign.sh <pkgdir>/*.pkg.tar.zst (no-ops, already signed) + scripts/repo_publish.sh <pkgdir>/*.pkg.tar.zst, then rm -f the local files manually (repo_release.sh’s own post-publish cleanup) – confirmed working 2026-08-02, all 12 files (3 pkgnames x 4 archs) published cleanly this way.
• .nvchecker.toml tracks the upstream git tag (linux-5.15.y branch, git.kernel.org/.../stable/linux.git), but the PKGBUILD source=() pulls a full release tarball from cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-$pkgver.tar.xz. These two can go out of sync: a git tag can exist (so nvchecker reports UPD) before/without kernel.org publishing the corresponding release tarball. Confirm real availability with makepkg -do --skippgpcheck (unsandboxed); a genuine 404 means “not published yet” — revert the pkgver bump and retry later, don’t chase it further.
• 2026-07-25: 5.15.211 -> 5.15.212, full update+build+publish across all 4 archs (x86_64, i686, i486, pentium4). Found and fixed a real ordering bug in update.sh: it reconciled the shared config file in place for x86_64 first, but only updated PKGBUILD’s checksum for it after the whole arch loop finished. Since config (unlike config.i686/etc) is appended to every arch’s source list via source_i686/source_i486/ source_pentium4 (those arrays add the per-arch config, they don’t replace the shared config entry), the 32-bit archs’ makepkg --nobuild re-validated config’s checksum against the stale PKGBUILD entry after its content had already changed for x86_64, and failed with a checksum mismatch. Fix: move the main-config checksum update to run immediately after reconciling the x86_64 config, inside the loop, before moving to the next arch — see update.sh’s if [ "$arch" = "x86_64" ] block. Also confirmed a new (previously undocumented) harmless chroot noise: during each arch’s post-build test-install, the mkinitcpio pacman hook errors file not found: '/etc/vconsole.conf' and command failed to execute correctly — this is the chroot’s own test-install step, not the package build itself (which already succeeded by that point); same category as the pre-existing namcap/checkpkg noise below, don’t chase it.
• 2026-07-02: 5.15.210 tag existed but tarball 404’d, twice (checked same day). Reverted both times, no diff left behind.
• 2026-07-04: same pattern again — nvchecker/git tag reported 5.15.211, but update.sh 5.15.211 hit a real 404 on cdn.kernel.org for the release tarball. Script auto-reverted the pkgver bump on the 404 path, but left an empty src/ dir behind (its cleanup only runs after successful config reconciliation, not on this early-exit branch) — removed it manually. Package still at 5.15.210. Retry later.
• 2026-07-03: 5.15.210 tarball became available. Full update done — see update.sh in the package dir, which now automates this whole process. Key points from doing it manually first:
  • Never use updpkgsums on this package. Its sha256sums array has bespoke logic (the “fail if upstream’s .config changes” block, ~line
  229. that swaps in sha256sums_pentium4/i686/i486 only when the main config’s checksum matches a hardcoded literal duplicated in two places (the main array entry at index 2, and the if condition string). updpkgsums doesn’t know about this and will desync it. Compute checksums by hand with sha256sum and update both occurrences of the literal.
  • config, config.i686, config.i486, config.pentium4 need to be reconciled against the new kernel version with make olddefconfig (this is exactly what prepare() already does at build time — reuse it via makepkg --nobuild --skippgpcheck, don’t reinvent it).
  • Must run the reconciliation inside each architecture’s real archbuild chroot, not on the host: sudo extra-<arch>-build -- -- --nobuild --skippgpcheck (note: needs a double --, see memory/TOOLING_NOTES.md). The chroot’s actual installed gcc/binutils versions get embedded in the config (CONFIG_CC_VERSION_TEXT/CONFIG_AS_VERSION/CONFIG_LD_VERSION), and some Kconfig options are gated on toolchain capability (e.g. CONFIG_CC_HAS_KASAN_SW_TAGS disappeared for all three 32-bit subarchs in the 2026-07-03 update, because their chroot’s gcc 15.2.1 differs from x86_64 host/chroot’s gcc 16.1.1) — reconciling on the host would silently produce a wrong config for the 32-bit builds.
  • The reconciled .config ends up at /var/lib/archbuild/extra-<arch>/<user>/build/linux-lts515/src/linux-<ver>/.config after the --nobuild run; copy it back over the source config[.arch] file (needs sudo cp + chown back to your user).
  • Even when the diff is only the header comment/version strings (no Kconfig option changes), still persist it — user’s explicit preference, don’t skip “cosmetic-only” diffs. Applied this to the 64-bit config too even though its Kconfig content was unchanged.
  • pkgrel stays at 1 for a pkgver bump (this package always resets it).
  • Clean up leftover *-prepare.log, PKGBUILD-namcap.log, the downloaded tarball, and src/ after --nobuild runs — none of these should be left behind.
  • Full builds (sudo extra-<arch>-build, no --nobuild) take a while (kernel compile); run them detached (screen -dmS <name> ..., see memory/TOOLING_NOTES.md) if the session might end before they finish — a plain backgrounded shell command dies with the session (SIGHUP), a detached screen doesn’t.
  • Known-harmless chroot noise same as other packages: namcap crashes with ImportError: libalpm.so.14 inside the chroot’s python env, and checkpkg says “target not found” (no local repo) — neither means the build failed, verify via presence of the produced log/package instead.