Meson: test archlinux on CI and migrate devcontainer

[tobiasdiez]

Add a CI test for Archlinux building sage with meson (similar to #40038 for Fedora). Moreover, the portability devcontainer is migrated to meson.

Log: https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/15158634096/job/42619320072?pr=40142

📝 Checklist

• The title is concise and informative.
• The description explains in detail what this PR is about.
• I have linked a relevant issue or discussion.
• I have created tests covering the changes.
• I have updated the documentation and checked the documentation preview.

⌛ Dependencies

• Meson: test void linux on CI and add devcontainer for it #40089

[tobiasdiez]

This generally works. A few bugs are discovered (left for follow-ups):

• Maxima help:

     ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)
    <BLANKLINE>
    ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index-html.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)

(is this a problem with the maxima installation on arch or how sage is calling maxima?)

• Meson build on Arch/Void: Missing 'cremona_mini.db' #40144

[antonio-rojas]

This generally works. A few bugs are discovered (left for follow-ups):

• Maxima help:

     ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)
    <BLANKLINE>
    ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index-html.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)

(is this a problem with the maxima installation on arch or how sage is calling maxima?)

Is this using the official Arch docker image? If so, you need to apply a fix like [1] since the docker image doesn't install docs in its default setup.

[1] https://github.com/sagemath/sage/blob/10.7.beta4/.ci/write-dockerfile.sh#L149

[antonio-rojas]

My general opinion on this is basically the same as @tornaria's one in #40089 - its usefulness is not clear to me. IMO it would me much more useful to test against a full set of system dependencies (which I am doing manually after every beta release) instead of a mixture of system/pypi ones. Also, as #40144 shows, this may create artificial issues due to conflicts between system and uv paths.

[tobiasdiez]

This generally works. A few bugs are discovered (left for follow-ups):

• Maxima help:

     ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)
    <BLANKLINE>
    ;;; Warning: Maxima is unable to set up the help system.
    (Details: CL-INFO::LOAD-PRIMARY-INDEX: Cannot open #P"/usr/share/info/maxima-index-html.lisp".
    C library error: No such file or directory)

(is this a problem with the maxima installation on arch or how sage is calling maxima?)

Is this using the official Arch docker image? If so, you need to apply a fix like [1] since the docker image doesn't install docs in its default setup.

[1] https://github.com/sagemath/sage/blob/10.7.beta4/.ci/write-dockerfile.sh#L149

Thanks, this worked well. Is this particular to the Arch docker image, or are users likely to encounter this as well (so that we should add it to the install instructions)?

My general opinion on this is basically the same as @tornaria's one in #40089 - its usefulness is not clear to me.

It's testing that pip install sagemath works in a new venv after installing all system packages. The main point here is to test that meson can find all system packages and use them correctly.

IMO it would me much more useful to test against a full set of system dependencies (which I am doing manually after every beta release) instead of a mixture of system/pypi ones.

I've now switched it to use system site packages on arch/void. For this to really use only system packages, one would need to add more of the arch.txt files for python packages (similar to https://github.com/sagemath/sage/blob/develop/build/pkgs/cython/distros/arch.txt).

[antonio-rojas]

Is this using the official Arch docker image? If so, you need to apply a fix like [1] since the docker image doesn't install docs in its default setup.
[1] https://github.com/sagemath/sage/blob/10.7.beta4/.ci/write-dockerfile.sh#L149

Thanks, this worked well. Is this particular to the Arch docker image, or are users likely to encounter this as well (so that we should add it to the install instructions)?

No, this is a docker specific thing, for image size reasons.

[github-actions]

Documentation preview for this PR (built with commit ce56ee6; changes) is ready! 🎉
This preview will update shortly after each push to this PR.

[tobiasdiez]

@antonio-rojas I realize this is not very helpful for you, but could we still get it in please?
If only to test that our info in the arch.txt files is correct and to keep track of issues like the cremona db discovery (https://github.com/sagemath/sage/actions/runs/17014876503/job/48235821226?pr=40142#step:9:72).

[antonio-rojas]

Sure

[tobiasdiez]

Thanks!