[gentoo-dev] archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[gentoo-dev] archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[Filip Gruszczyński]

Hello everyone,

This is my first mail here, so I would like to introduce myself. My
name is Filip Gruszczyński, I am studying CS at the Warsaw University.
I am currently developing small filesystem, that makes accessing
rdiff-backup archives a lot easier. This project is a part of Google
Summer of Code, under mentorship of Gentoo Foundation.

Unfortunately I know very few people, who actually use rdiff-backup
and I can hardly find anyone, who would like to provide me with some
feedback or feature requests. I am very interested in opinions and
advice, as this is my first large, OSS project.

Filesystem can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/archfs/. The
code is still very immature and I am far from accepting its quality,
yet all basic features I wanted this filesystem to have are already
there. Now I would like to focus on quality and robustness, and that
is why external opinion would be very useful. If anyone here uses
rdiff-backup and would like to take look and then inform me about the
results, I would be very happy.

-- 
Filip Gruszczyński
éí˘‡^ž\a§śŠ(Ž	šŠX§‚XŹ

[gentoo-dev] archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[Filip Gruszczyński]

=========
Status report
=========

Project description
=============

Archfs is a filesystem that displays rdiff-backup archives in a
user-friendly fashion. It is built using FUSE library, that makes
possible creating filesystems in userspace. This particular filesystem
analyzes given single or multiple rdiff-backup archives and allows to
browse its contents.

Project status
==========

All planned features are operational. Autotools are used to configure,
build and install filesystem. I am learning how ebuilds are made and
gathering feedback from users in order to work on code's quality and
robustness.

Timeline
======
1 VIII - 10 VIII - making it possible to add software to gentoo
distribution; presenting software to possible large number of users to
gather feedback
11 VIII - 20 VIII - excessive testing; using feedback gathered from
users for fixing bugs/adding smaller features;

-- 
Filip Gruszczyński

[gentoo-dev] Re: archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[Steve Long]

emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "archfs".

Perhaps a link to the homepage/ overlay might be handy? ;)

This is not "something that's about the technical development of our tree"
so it might be considered off-topic (interesting though it might be.) As a
general rule, the Unsupported Software forum is a good place to get
feedback from users til something is releasable. (Apologies if you've
already gone thru that process, just mention it and give the url in that
case.) At that point getting feedback from devs as to it's suitability for
inclusion is acceptable, aiui, although even then you're probably just
going to get told to get on #gentoo-sunrise (irc.freenode.org) and work on
getting it into the main overlay before it makes the portage tree. (Unless
ofc a dev wants to pick it up out of interest.)

BTW I don't recommend autotools (there's a reason they're called autohell ;)
especially if you're not writing from scratch. (That's why you get all
those redundant configure checks..) A simple system.mk which gets included
in the makefile is a lot easier for everyone. ion3 (which is now in mabi's
overlay iirc) does this, and it's a doddle to configure. (I think it was
one or two sed calls.)


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-dev] Re: archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[Steve Long]

Er it's been pointed out to me that this is a Google SoC project, so
apologies for the beginners info. (I'd forgotten your earlier post.)
http://code.google.com/p/archfs/ for anyone else who's interested.


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: archfs - filesystem for rdiff-backup archives

[Filip Gruszczyński]

> Er it's been pointed out to me that this is a Google SoC project, so
> apologies for the beginners info. (I'd forgotten your earlier post.)

Oh, no problem, I am a beginner after all :-) And I always forget to
add project's homepage
to the message :-/

> BTW I don't recommend autotools (there's a reason they're called autohell ;)

Yeah, now I know that myself ;-)

> especially if you're not writing from scratch. (That's why you get all
> those redundant configure checks..) A simple system.mk which gets included
> in the makefile is a lot easier for everyone. ion3 (which is now in mabi's
> overlay iirc) does this, and it's a doddle to configure. (I think it was
> one or two sed calls.)

Well, you are third person, that is telling me that (though you all
differ with alternative tools - from CMake, to pkg-config, to what you
are suggesting now). If only I knew it, when I was getting down to it.
Unfortunately, my lack of experience doesn't make this project any
easier, it's my first 3 months, that I'm doing anything like this.
However, for the time being I will stick to what I could create with
those autotools - I get shivers, when I imagine, that I have to learn
something like this again ;-)

-- 
Filip Gruszczyński