llwm fails to build on power9

Hey guix!

I'm trying to help my friend set up his Talos 2, which uses Power9.

We are currently using Chimera Linux + guix (to get extra packages).

My friend wants to use bitcoin-knots, which was forked from bitcoin-core.

Looking at this merge request it is fairly easy to start the build:

Both of these commands fail:

$ guix build -f bitcoin-knots-commit.scm

$ guix package --keep-going -f bitcoin-knots-commit.scm

$ guix package --keep-going -K -f bitcoin-knots-commit.scm

The build fails, because LLVM fails to build with some tests failing.

********************

Testing: 0.. 10.. 20.. 30.. 40.. 50.. 60.. 70.. 80.. 90..

********************

Failed Tests (4):

LLVM :: tools/dsymutil/X86/DWARFLinkerParallel/odr-fwd-declaration3.test

LLVM :: tools/dsymutil/X86/DWARFLinkerParallel/odr-predictable-output2.test

LLVM :: tools/dsymutil/X86/DWARFLinkerParallel/odr-string.test

LLVM :: tools/dsymutil/X86/DWARFLinkerParallel/odr-types-in-subprogram1.test

Testing Time: 166.79s

Total Discovered Tests: 58173

Skipped : 64 (0.11%)

Unsupported : 2073 (3.56%)

Passed : 55876 (96.05%)

Expectedly Failed: 156 (0.27%)

Failed : 4 (0.01%)

make[3]: *** [test/CMakeFiles/check-llvm.dir/build.make:74: test/CMakeFiles/check-llvm] Error 1

make[3]: Leaving directory '/tmp/guix-build-llvm-18.1.8.drv-0/source/build'

make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:50589: test/CMakeFiles/check-llvm.dir/all] Error 2

make[2]: Leaving directory '/tmp/guix-build-llvm-18.1.8.drv-0/source/build'

make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:50596: test/CMakeFiles/check-llvm.dir/rule] Error 2

make[1]: Leaving directory '/tmp/guix-build-llvm-18.1.8.drv-0/source/build'

make: *** [Makefile:13361: check-llvm] Error 2

I just installed guix a few days ago, but in case you're curious what my guix describe says:

$ guix describe

Generation 1 Aug 18 2025 12:15:18 (current)

guix 18ccd72

repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git

branch: master

commit: 18ccd72418dc990393666ec3e8779b9193867870

$ su

# guix describe

# guix describe

guix 7448f75

repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git

branch: master

commit: 7448f7572ffc219c6618f24fe69468cae3d7498c

I'm attaching the bitcoin-knots build script that I stole from the merge request.

And I am attaching the LLVM build log (though I am deleting most of it). LLVM compiled just fine,

What else can I do to help?

Thanks,

FYI,

I believe that no one has yet managed a reproducible build of bitcoin-knots on power 9. Bitcoin-knots has a script to reproducibly build itself via guix on x86_64: "$bitcoin-knots-src/contrib/guix/guix-build". The lead developer told me, "'guix-build' is only known to work reproducibly on x86_64 at the moment; I don't know the outcome on POWER9".

An older bit of documentation says the same thing, "Requirements

Conservatively, you will need an *x86_64 machine* with:"

This newer file does not say that you need an x86_64 machine:

Thanks,

Joshua