Platform Requirements for 15.x

[AshCripps]

This issue is to discuss the platform requirements for 15.x. Node.js 15 is scheduled to be released in October 2020 and End-of-Life in June 2021.

As this is a non-LTS release we dont have to worry too much about making changes to platform levels as the version is not supported very long.

Based on https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/BUILDING.md, https://github.com/nodejs/build/blob/master/jenkins/scripts/VersionSelectorScript.groovy we have:

What we build and test on

Only current Tier 1 and Tier 2 platforms shown.

os-arch	release machine	tested on	supported on
aix-ppc64	AIX 7.1 TL05 on PPC64BE with GCC 6	AIX 7.1 TL05	AIX >= 7.2 TL02
darwin-x64	macOS 10.15, Xcode Command Line Tools 10 with -mmacosx-version-min=10.13	macOS 10.14 + 10.15	macOS >= 10.11
linux-arm64	CentOS 7 with devtoolset-8 / GCC 8		kernel >= 4.5, glibc >= 2.17
linux-armv7l	Cross-compiled on Ubuntu 18.04 x64 with custom GCC toolchain		kernel >= 4.14, glibc >= 2.24
linux-ppc64le	CentOS 7 with devtoolset-6 / GCC 6		>=Power 8, kernel >= 3.10.0, glibc >= 2.17
linux-s390x	RHEL 7 with devtoolset-6 / GCC 6	RHEL 7 with devtoolset-6 / GCC 6	kernel >= 3.10.0, glibc >= 2.17
linux-x64	CentOS 7 with devtoolset-6 / GCC 6		kernel >= 3.10, glibc >= 2.17
sunos-x64			>= 18
win-x64 and win-x86	Windows 2012 R2 (x64) with Visual Studio 2019		>= Windows 2008 R2/2012 R2

@nodejs/build Feel free to correct anymistakes ive made and to also comment in discussion whether we need to update any of these patforms.

Personally I think we should probably bump macos support from 10.11 to match the compiler target of 10.13

cc @nodejs/platform-aix @nodejs/platform-arm @nodejs/platform-macos @nodejs/platform-ppc @nodejs/platform-s390 @nodejs/platform-smartos @nodejs/platform-windows @nodejs/releasers @nodejs/v8-update

Compiler Levels

From https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/BUILDING.md#supported-toolchains:

Operating System	Compiler Versions
Linux	GCC >= 6.3
Windows	Visual Studio >= 2019 with the Windows 10 SDK on a 64-bit host
macOS	Xcode >= 10 (Apple LLVM >= 10)

I think these are fine for 15 and we would at least like to keep them the same on the IBM platforms.

Actions

• Update macos xcode level
• Update macos supported level - doc: update support macos version for 15.x node#35022

[richardlau]

We stopped building binaries on SmartOS (but we do still run tests) so I've removed that entry from the table.

The IBM platforms look okay to me. In an ideal world we'd build releases on AIX on AIX 7.2 (to match the supported on version) but we don't yet have that capability (we need to keep an AIX 7.1 release machine until at least Node.js 10 goes End-of-Life).

[AshCripps]

Ive updated to add compiler levels.

In terms of this

In an ideal world we'd build releases on AIX on AIX 7.2

We are working to source some 7.2 machines for the CI.