foreign architecture builds doesn't work with classic snaps
Metadata
Current evaluation
The classic-snap --target-arch build is unsupported because architecture selection is plugin-specific; the sole maintainer response said general support required Debian cross-compilation, and the issue remains open.
Suggested action: close not a bug
Reason: The sole maintainer comment explicitly states that --target-arch is plugin-specific, only the kernel plugin supported it, and general support would require Debian cross-compilation support. The reproducible failure therefore reflects the documented limitation rather than a Snapcraft defect.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
1
Complexity:
90
Confidence:
94
Actionability:
35
Issue body
Building the teleconsole snap, which is a pre-built binary for amd64 and armhf, I discovered that --target-arch=armhf doesn't work when the snap is a classic. I presume snapcraft is doing some cross-build environment setup and as a result core isn't installed.
"classic confinement requires the core snap to be installed. Install it by running `snap install core`."
A workaround I used was to fudge prime/meta/snap.yaml to change the architecture from amd64 to armhf, and then use mksquashfs to make the snap:-
$ mksquashfs ./prime teleconsole_0.3.1_armhf.snap -noappend -comp xz -no-xattrs -all-root
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
1
Complexity:
90
Confidence:
94
Actionability:
35
|
close not a bug | The classic-snap --target-arch build is unsupported because architecture selection is plugin-specific; the sole maintainer response said general support required Debian cross-compilation, and the issue remains open. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
32
Quick Win:
2
Complexity:
82
Confidence:
91
Actionability:
38
|
close not a bug | Classic foreign-architecture packaging through legacy --target-arch was unsupported because cross-building was plugin-specific; only the kernel plugin supported it and Debian cross-compilation was not ready. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
8
Complexity:
60
Confidence:
60
Actionability:
70
|
keep open | Building classic snaps with --target-arch for a foreign architecture fails with 'core snap not installed' error. No maintainer response in 10 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
16
Staleness:
92
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
65
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Cross-arch builds (--target-arch) of classic snaps fail because the build environment lacks the core snap. Reported 2016 against snapcraft 2.x; 0 comments, no maintainer response; codebase since fully rewritten. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | Cross-architecture builds fail for classic snaps due to missing core snap dependency. Issue is over 9 years old with no maintainer response or updates. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | Classic snap cross-architecture builds fail due to missing core snap. Issue is over 9 years old with no maintainer response or activity. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Classic snap builds fail when targeting foreign architectures due to missing core snap installation during cross-build setup. Unresolved for over 9 years with no maintainer response. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related issues
No related issues found above the similarity threshold.