treewide: remove torch and related packages

[bhipple]

See #71888 for details.

CC @NixOS/nixos-release-managers @nh2 @teto

ZHF: #80379

Motivation for this change

Things done

• Tested using sandboxing (nix.useSandbox on NixOS, or option sandbox in nix.conf on non-NixOS linux)
• Built on platform(s)
  • NixOS
  • macOS
  • other Linux distributions
• Tested via one or more NixOS test(s) if existing and applicable for the change (look inside nixos/tests)
• Tested compilation of all pkgs that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review wip"
• Tested execution of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
• Determined the impact on package closure size (by running nix path-info -S before and after)
• Ensured that relevant documentation is up to date
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

[bhipple]

@GrahamcOfBorg eval

[bhipple]

Unrelated change, my emacs replaced the tab character someone inserted into this file with the correct number of spaces.

[bhipple]

We're running version 0.0pre20160820, which hasn't built in a long time, and upstream https://github.com/torch/distro/blob/master/README.md says, as of 3 years ago:

NOTE: Torch is not actively developed anymore and is in maintenance mode.

[nh2]

@nh2

Btw I know nothing about torch, on #83567 I just cherry-picked @teto's cleanup.

@bhipple on #83567 (comment) @worldofpeace said:

We really should have a throw in aliases.nix. Would love to have a throws.nix eventually.

Do you know how to do that? If yes, could you do it for these packages?

[bhipple]

I think the idea is to check in something in the top-level aliases.nix, like this:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix#L51

So that if an unsuspecting user goes to try to do something like nix-build -A torch, they will get the alias telling them it was deleted rather than an attribute not found error.

Is that right @worldofpeace? In this particular case I think we'd be fine with or without the aliases, since it's been broken for a long time and upstream died out years ago by the looks of it, so there probably won't be many users trying it out.

[worldofpeace]

I think the idea is to check in something in the top-level aliases.nix, like this:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/top-level/aliases.nix#L51

So that if an unsuspecting user goes to try to do something like nix-build -A torch, they will get the alias telling them it was deleted rather than an attribute not found error.

Is that right @worldofpeace? In this particular case I think we'd be fine with or without the aliases, since it's been broken for a long time and upstream died out years ago by the looks of it, so there probably won't be many users trying it out.

Yes, that is spot on. Considering it has died out for years a silent removal could be ok. But in a general sense, the silent removal of anything usually upsets end users.