why do *any* packages on archlinuxarm differ from archlinux?

[starfry]

I've been trying today to set up a local network drive containing downloaded packages. I have some arm devices on the network and some intel. All are archlinux/archlinuxarm. I noticed that the architecture-independent *any* packages often failed and have narrowed this down to the fact that an *any* package in an archlinuxarm repo is different to the same *any* package in the archlinux repo (their sizes are different).

I presume this is becase they're all rebuilt from source and assume they are otherwise they are the same. I would expect that an *any* package from an archlinux repo would work on an archlinuxarm device and would not require rebuilding. That's the case with my aur packages that I have built myself at least.

I'm just curious really, is there anything else that would make the same version of an architecure-independent package and different sizes and, therefore, md5s between archlinux and archlinuxarm ?

If they are indeed the same, could they not just be copied from archlinux repos to the archlinuxarm ones? What's gained by rebuilding them ?

I've had to set up separate network drives for the intel and arm devices on the network due to the clash between *any* packages from the two repos. It means I have a little duplication across the *any* packages but hey-ho.

[kmihelich]

They are different because we rebuild all packages through our build system regardless of the package. This is simply how we do things, and won't change.