[gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[William Hubbs]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 854 bytes --]

All,

I have noticed that this list and the gentoo-releng irc channel
have been dead for a very long time, and I remember seeing a post a
while back in which agaffney announced his retirement.  Also there are
multiple bugs open on livecd-tools, and there has been no attempt to fix
them.

I offered to join the team a while back, but was told there was no time
to train me.

So, I am concerned about the releng project.  What is it's status?  Do
we have anyone who is in the project any longer?

What about the maintenance of their tools?  I see from the live ebuilds
that they are maintained on git repositories that are not part of
gentoo's infrastructure, and, in the case of livecd-tools, there have
been no changes since December of last year.

Can someone respond to gentoo-releng and let us know the status of the
project?

Thanks much,

William


[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 07-08-2010 21:15, William Hubbs wrote:
> All,
> 
> I have noticed that this list and the gentoo-releng irc channel
> have been dead for a very long time, and I remember seeing a post a
> while back in which agaffney announced his retirement.  Also there are
> multiple bugs open on livecd-tools, and there has been no attempt to fix
> them.

Andrew already replied to the gentoo-releng ml[1], but in case someone
wonders what happened by reading this ml, I'm adding a reply here.

> I offered to join the team a while back, but was told there was no time
> to train me.
> 
> So, I am concerned about the releng project.  What is it's status?  Do
> we have anyone who is in the project any longer?

agaffney is still the releng lead and we still have a few people working
in the releng team.
We're working to get new weekly stages for amd64/x86 soon and added back
the missing isos for amd64/x86. Most of the other arches have current
weekly stages and isos.

> What about the maintenance of their tools?  I see from the live ebuilds
> that they are maintained on git repositories that are not part of
> gentoo's infrastructure, and, in the case of livecd-tools, there have
> been no changes since December of last year.
> 
> Can someone respond to gentoo-releng and let us know the status of the
> project?
> 
> Thanks much,
> 
> William

 [1] -
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-releng/msg_dbd6fc26b572d5771db0a2f9fdc158f7.xml

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
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=2q1F
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Mike Frysinger]

On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 5:15 PM, William Hubbs wrote:
> I have noticed that this list and the gentoo-releng irc channel
> have been dead for a very long time, and I remember seeing a post a
> while back in which agaffney announced his retirement.  Also there are
> multiple bugs open on livecd-tools, and there has been no attempt to fix
> them.
>
> I offered to join the team a while back, but was told there was no time
> to train me.
>
> So, I am concerned about the releng project.  What is it's status?  Do
> we have anyone who is in the project any longer?
>
> What about the maintenance of their tools?  I see from the live ebuilds
> that they are maintained on git repositories that are not part of
> gentoo's infrastructure, and, in the case of livecd-tools, there have
> been no changes since December of last year.
>
> Can someone respond to gentoo-releng and let us know the status of the
> project?

sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
-mike

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Ben de Groot]

On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...

No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Fabio Erculiani]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:35 AM, Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
>
> No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.

That one, for sure.

>
> Cheers,
> Ben
>
>



-- 
Fabio Erculiani
http://lxnay.com
http://www.sabayon.org
http://www.gentoo.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Thilo Bangert]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 300 bytes --]

Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> said:
> On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
> 
> No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.

Could you explain why you think so?

> 
> Cheers,
> Ben


[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Ben de Groot]

On 12 August 2010 17:13, Thilo Bangert <bangert@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> said:
>> On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> > sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
>>
>> No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.
>
> Could you explain why you think so?

1) it was an experiment plagued by bugs, some *very* serious
2) the normal, "hands-on", follow the handbook, manual install has
always been the recommended way to install Gentoo, and could be
considered a rite of passage, familiarizing the user with how things
are done in this distro
3) too few people are interested in developing, testing and
maintaining this; making it more likely that a revival of this project
will result in failure again
4) a buggy installer is a disservice to new users and can give them a
false impression of Gentoo

But that's just my opinion. :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Mike Frysinger]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 5:39 AM, Ben de Groot wrote:
> On 12 August 2010 17:13, Thilo Bangert wrote:
>> Ben de Groot said:
>>> On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>> > sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
>>>
>>> No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.
>>
>> Could you explain why you think so?
>
> 1) it was an experiment plagued by bugs, some *very* serious

bugs are not a reason to not work on a solution many found useful

> 2) the normal, "hands-on", follow the handbook, manual install has
> always been the recommended way to install Gentoo, and could be
> considered a rite of passage, familiarizing the user with how things
> are done in this distro

*yawn* ... heralding from the age of "everything is done from the
console" does not preclude simple and helpful GUI automation.  no one
is talking about changing the recommended install procedure, just
providing more options.  forcing a command line install can also waste
time on repeat installs as knowledge of the install procedures really
doesnt help you in maintenance of Gentoo once installed.

> 3) too few people are interested in developing, testing and
> maintaining this; making it more likely that a revival of this project
> will result in failure again

that's why i said "it'd be nice" and not "i'm going to do it"
-mike

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Alec Warner]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 5:39 AM, Ben de Groot wrote:
>> On 12 August 2010 17:13, Thilo Bangert wrote:
>>> Ben de Groot said:
>>>> On 9 August 2010 14:29, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>>> > sure would be nice if someone picked up the installer again ...
>>>>
>>>> No, it wouldn't. Best leave that dead and buried.
>>>
>>> Could you explain why you think so?
>>
>> 1) it was an experiment plagued by bugs, some *very* serious
>
> bugs are not a reason to not work on a solution many found useful
>
>> 2) the normal, "hands-on", follow the handbook, manual install has
>> always been the recommended way to install Gentoo, and could be
>> considered a rite of passage, familiarizing the user with how things
>> are done in this distro
>
> *yawn* ... heralding from the age of "everything is done from the
> console" does not preclude simple and helpful GUI automation.  no one
> is talking about changing the recommended install procedure, just
> providing more options.  forcing a command line install can also waste
> time on repeat installs as knowledge of the install procedures really
> doesnt help you in maintenance of Gentoo once installed.
>
>> 3) too few people are interested in developing, testing and
>> maintaining this; making it more likely that a revival of this project
>> will result in failure again
>

2 questions:

1) I assume most people who are crazy enough to 'install gentoo on
thousands of machines' use some kind of image based installation
process and not a color-by-numbers install vis-a-vis the handbook?
Has anyone written a Gentoo installer that is not image based?
1.5) There is a hidden assumption here that image based installations
would not work for everyone (likely due to a lack of the 'right'
image; too old, wrong arch, etc...)
2) Has anyone looked at just taking an existing installation framework
(d-i? kickstart?) and just making it run different stuff?  I honestly
have not looked at either (someone else at work does that thank god)
but it can't be outside of the realm of impossibility...

-A

> that's why i said "it'd be nice" and not "i'm going to do it"
> -mike
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Fabio Erculiani]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>
> 2 questions:
>
> [......]
> 2) Has anyone looked at just taking an existing installation framework
> (d-i? kickstart?) and just making it run different stuff?  I honestly
> have not looked at either (someone else at work does that thank god)
> but it can't be outside of the realm of impossibility...

I probably said this several times, in Sabayon we do use an almost
vanilla Aanconda Installer, that does livecd/dvd to hd. Using Anaconda
means that stuff like kickstart is supported (even if we never used
that). The downside is: we need to use some of cr*ppy redhatish
packages (only for the purpose of satisfying anaconda runtime deps),
and libselinux/libsepol, which are known to cause automagic
dependencies issues across a wide range of random pkgs. We solve that
by bundling such libs in our app-admin/anaconda package and installing
them on less annoying library path (/usr/lib/anaconda-runtime),
something not really Gentoo-compliant.

>
> -A
>
>> that's why i said "it'd be nice" and not "i'm going to do it"
>> -mike
>>
>>
>
>



-- 
Fabio Erculiani
http://lxnay.com
http://www.sabayon.org
http://www.gentoo.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Mike Frysinger]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Alec Warner wrote:
> 1) I assume most people who are crazy enough to 'install gentoo on
> thousands of machines' use some kind of image based installation
> process and not a color-by-numbers install vis-a-vis the handbook?
> Has anyone written a Gentoo installer that is not image based?
> 1.5) There is a hidden assumption here that image based installations
> would not work for everyone (likely due to a lack of the 'right'
> image; too old, wrong arch, etc...)
> 2) Has anyone looked at just taking an existing installation framework
> (d-i? kickstart?) and just making it run different stuff?  I honestly
> have not looked at either (someone else at work does that thank god)
> but it can't be outside of the realm of impossibility...

i dont particularly care what installer we utilize, it'd just be nice
to have a helpful gui/curses based approach available as an option.  i
have toyed with anaconda in the past, but my personal experience has
been that our gui python one was better.  that and the insistence on
redhat-only tools (like rpm) is obnoxious.
-mike

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Fabio Erculiani]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Alec Warner wrote:
>> 1) I assume most people who are crazy enough to 'install gentoo on
>> thousands of machines' use some kind of image based installation
>> process and not a color-by-numbers install vis-a-vis the handbook?
>> Has anyone written a Gentoo installer that is not image based?
>> 1.5) There is a hidden assumption here that image based installations
>> would not work for everyone (likely due to a lack of the 'right'
>> image; too old, wrong arch, etc...)
>> 2) Has anyone looked at just taking an existing installation framework
>> (d-i? kickstart?) and just making it run different stuff?  I honestly
>> have not looked at either (someone else at work does that thank god)
>> but it can't be outside of the realm of impossibility...
>
> i dont particularly care what installer we utilize, it'd just be nice
> to have a helpful gui/curses based approach available as an option.  i
> have toyed with anaconda in the past, but my personal experience has
> been that our gui python one was better.  that and the insistence on
> redhat-only tools (like rpm) is obnoxious.
> -mike

RPM dependency has been moved to the yum module inside anaconda and
it's not required anymore.

>
>



-- 
Fabio Erculiani
http://lxnay.com
http://www.sabayon.org
http://www.gentoo.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Thilo Bangert]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: Text/Plain, Size: 819 bytes --]


> 1) I assume most people who are crazy enough to 'install gentoo on
> thousands of machines' use some kind of image based installation
> process and not a color-by-numbers install vis-a-vis the handbook?
> Has anyone written a Gentoo installer that is not image based?
> 1.5) There is a hidden assumption here that image based installations
> would not work for everyone (likely due to a lack of the 'right'
> image; too old, wrong arch, etc...)

agaffney had started work on quickstart, which basically did what the 
handbook did in an automatic fashion. i only tried it a couple of times, 
but it worked rather well.

its a small and neat piece of code. for anybody looking at deploying 
Gentoo in an automatic fashion this is a good start:
http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php

kind regards
Thilo

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Luca Barbato]

On 08/12/2010 08:23 PM, Thilo Bangert wrote:
> its a small and neat piece of code. for anybody looking at deploying 

Why isn't already an official project ^^?

It looks quite what we need =P

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo/linux
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Ramon van Alteren]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1214 bytes --]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 08:23:58PM +0200, Thilo Bangert wrote:
> agaffney had started work on quickstart, which basically did what the 
> handbook did in an automatic fashion. i only tried it a couple of times, 
> but it worked rather well.
> 
> its a small and neat piece of code. for anybody looking at deploying 
> Gentoo in an automatic fashion this is a good start:
> http://agaffney.org/quickstart.php

I second that, we use it to all installs in our 3000 node cluster and it
works fine for us. We've extended it to use our mysql-based server
inventory and a bunch of additional features:

 * lvm-protection (not wiping named partitions on reinstall)
 * raid controller setup
 * ipmi configuration support
 * misc environment specific stuff

The code is ugly and depends in most cases on an external information
source to do the work, but given sufficient interest I'm willing to see if
I can clean it up and make it generic enough for general use.

We've been using it since 2007 or so and are reasonably happy with it, most
of the gripes stem from the quality of our own changes rather than the base
packages those changes were made upon :)

So thanks, agaffney :)

Grtz Ramon

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Luca Barbato]

On 08/26/2010 10:38 AM, Ramon van Alteren wrote:
> The code is ugly and depends in most cases on an external information
> source to do the work, but given sufficient interest I'm willing to see if
> I can clean it up and make it generic enough for general use.

That would be great ^^

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo/linux
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

Re: [gentoo-dev] status of releng project

[Ramon van Alteren]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 629 bytes --]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 02:07:44PM +0200, Luca Barbato wrote:
> On 08/26/2010 10:38 AM, Ramon van Alteren wrote:
> > The code is ugly and depends in most cases on an external information
> > source to do the work, but given sufficient interest I'm willing to see if
> > I can clean it up and make it generic enough for general use.
> 
> That would be great ^^

Looks like I need to re-acquaint myself with teh current status of the
project, massive amount of changes since I last looked, it even gained a
server :)

I'll see if I can port our lsi/dell raid support, that's probably
useful for other folks.

Ramon

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]