Re: [gentoo-dev] borked release media

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 12:25 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I have never once been able to grab a portage snapshot and build a
> stage 1, 2, 3 series from it without encountering at least a couple of
> problems with the tree.

Ditto - the latest issue I've run into is: 443472.  Probably won't
impact the average user, and perhaps I should just modify the script
to not bother reading that file and figure out what the latest build
is on its own.

>
> I think we should consider things that break release media serious
> regressions. I don't know what that entails specifically, but whether
> it need be QA bashing down your door or a quick fix or revert, it sure
> would be nice to get Gentoo to a place where release media always
> works.

Agreed.  If a user can't just burn a CD and then do an emerge kde-meta
there is a problem.

>
> In short, I think the conversation we should be having should be about
> how to avoid breaking release builds and how to quickly fix problems
> when they're discovered.

I think those working with catalyst have the most to add regarding
what breaks them.

As far as detect-ability goes, do we need some kind of tinderbox that
just does a daily build.  Perhaps just build from stage3 to a couple
of world targets, including one with some server-oriented software,
one with gnome, and one with kde?  I've reported a bunch of bugs with
the EC2 bootstrap script described on my blog (not my original work),
but it is only automated from a build perspective - testing is manual.
 That takes about 18 hours to build (with an emphasis on economy), and
I use spot instances so it really only costs maybe a buck or two.

My experience has been that if it builds it usually works.  So, simply
testing for whether the build completes is a pretty-good first step.

Of course, for system packages our recourse isn't necessarily good,
since we don't have a test branch or anything like that.  If we wanted
to revert we'd have to impact users who already upgraded.  Obviously
the goal would be to fix in place with a new revbump, assuming that
were possible.

Rich