[gentoo-releng] Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[gentoo-releng] Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[davecode]

Hi Gentoo-

My overall impression of Gentoo is "what a fantastic system"!  I can't
believe how good, really.  These are all fairly minor things.  I'm new
to Gentoo, so forgive dumb ignorance, but Linux and programming are my
profession.

For your 2008.0 release:

The 2007.0~ppc branch fails to upgrade over a Bash / Portage block.  So
will 2008.0 break too, until attended?  A Bash / Portage conflict is the
worst possible.

I tried to fix it (from zsh chroot into Gentoo) but gave up.  Stock
advice on FAQs does not work in this thorny case.  Forums show
occasional situations between Python / Portage, too.

I do not want/ask your help, but only to share a thought:

Portage should have embedded Python and embedded Bash.  Exactly the
versions it needs, with bare minimum required libraries, statically
compiled.

The Portage 'snapshot' is already a special install step.  And Gentoo
already ships regular snapshots.  The only thing missing is embedding
the dependencies directly.

I've never embedded Bash, but have Python, several times.  Bash could
probably work too.  The combined ELFs weigh around 2 MB total, not bad
for a critical executive controller like Portage which has its own
dedicated snapshots.

Finally - how about some recent stage3 ~arch tarballs.  I can't find
any.  Most distros do daily/weekly/monthly build snapshots.  The only
snapshots for Gentoo seem to be Portage snapshots.  Am I wrong?  I know
the 2008.0 beta is due soon, but I mean on a continuous basis.  Not
binary builds, just the latest ~arch tarball.  If not frequent, at least
quarterly?

Normal ppc 2007.0 works fine from a dependency standpoint.  The entire
reason for trying Gentoo is that ppc boxes need the absolute most
bleeding edge of everything.  Hence the interest in Gentoo and
specifically ~arch.  We also want the latest GNOME anyhow, plus
compiz-fusion.

Would it be best to wait a month until beta, or is it reasonable to
install ~arch right now?  A few bugzilla contributions from us might
help the beta project but deadly bash/Portage conflicts are a little too
thick for my taste right now...

Thank you!
-- 
  
  davecode@nospammail.net

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Andrew Gaffney]

davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> Hi Gentoo-
> 
> My overall impression of Gentoo is "what a fantastic system"!  I can't
> believe how good, really.  These are all fairly minor things.  I'm new
> to Gentoo, so forgive dumb ignorance, but Linux and programming are my
> profession.
> 
> For your 2008.0 release:
> 
> The 2007.0~ppc branch fails to upgrade over a Bash / Portage block.  So
> will 2008.0 break too, until attended?  A Bash / Portage conflict is the
> worst possible.

No. The 2008.0 stages will have whatever versions of packages are in the tree at 
the time of our snapshot.

> I tried to fix it (from zsh chroot into Gentoo) but gave up.  Stock
> advice on FAQs does not work in this thorny case.  Forums show
> occasional situations between Python / Portage, too.
> 
> I do not want/ask your help, but only to share a thought:
> 
> Portage should have embedded Python and embedded Bash.  Exactly the
> versions it needs, with bare minimum required libraries, statically
> compiled.

No. That's not feasible when you start looking at all the architectures that 
Gentoo is supported on.

> The Portage 'snapshot' is already a special install step.  And Gentoo
> already ships regular snapshots.  The only thing missing is embedding
> the dependencies directly.
> 
> I've never embedded Bash, but have Python, several times.  Bash could
> probably work too.  The combined ELFs weigh around 2 MB total, not bad
> for a critical executive controller like Portage which has its own
> dedicated snapshots.

Those snapshots have nothing to do with the Portage program. They are simply 
snapshots of the "tree".

> Finally - how about some recent stage3 ~arch tarballs.  I can't find
> any.  Most distros do daily/weekly/monthly build snapshots.  The only
> snapshots for Gentoo seem to be Portage snapshots.  Am I wrong?  I know
> the 2008.0 beta is due soon, but I mean on a continuous basis.  Not
> binary builds, just the latest ~arch tarball.  If not frequent, at least
> quarterly?

The stage tarballs are *never* ~arch. We have talked about doing automated 
builds, but we're not releasing them for public consumption, since there will be 
absolutely *zero* QA done on them.

> Normal ppc 2007.0 works fine from a dependency standpoint.  The entire
> reason for trying Gentoo is that ppc boxes need the absolute most
> bleeding edge of everything.  Hence the interest in Gentoo and
> specifically ~arch.  We also want the latest GNOME anyhow, plus
> compiz-fusion.

Uhh, why exactly do PPC boxes need the newest everything?

> Would it be best to wait a month until beta, or is it reasonable to
> install ~arch right now?  A few bugzilla contributions from us might
> help the beta project but deadly bash/Portage conflicts are a little too
> thick for my taste right now...

That particular blocker isn't exactly hard to get around. There are a few 
threads in the forums (and I'm sure on the gentoo-user mailing list) that talk 
about it.

-- 
Andrew Gaffney                                 http://dev.gentoo.org/~agaffney/
Gentoo Linux Developer             Catalyst/Installer + x86 release coordinator
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[gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[davecode]

> The 2008.0 stages will have whatever versions of packages
> are in the tree at  the time of our snapshot.

Right; that's also what I meant about rolling stage3's.  The only
difference being that much more careful attention is paid to the
official release tarballs, stripping out blockages and the like.


> not feasible when you start looking at all the architectures

Hm.

Portage runs Python bytecodes and bash scripts.  Those are portable.

The interpreters themselves need zero platform optimization for a
bootstrap ("stage3 install").  They can target generic x386 and ppc etc.
 Just like any commercial software vendor.

Following which users could recompile on their targets, if desired or
required.  Exotic targets could just do it the old way.


> That particular blocker isn't exactly hard to get around.

For you...but it cost me half a day, then defeat.  Please consider that
QA feedback.  The FAQs failed.  I don't even want to know how to fix
this.  To me, the fix is to embed the interpreters.


> The stage tarballs are *never* ~arch. We have talked about doing automated 
> builds, but we're not releasing them for public consumption, since there will be 
> absolutely *zero* QA done on them.

Of course not; I didn't mean you replace official releases with ~arch! 
I only meant that, like Debian et al, there be regular tarballs for
eager testers.  That seems more sensible that starting testing from a
year-old tarball.  Some others might test in kexec/vmware/chroot or
whatever.

> why exactly do PPC boxes need the newest everything?

Sigh.  I'd rather not go there.  Suffice to say ~arch is why we're here.
 The current ~arch is turning into 2008.0 anyway, so that's what where
we can help QA Gentoo.

Thanks again.
-- 
  
  davecode@nospammail.net

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 21:56 -0800, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> > The stage tarballs are *never* ~arch. We have talked about doing automated 
> > builds, but we're not releasing them for public consumption, since there will be 
> > absolutely *zero* QA done on them.
> 
> Of course not; I didn't mean you replace official releases with ~arch! 
> I only meant that, like Debian et al, there be regular tarballs for
> eager testers.  That seems more sensible that starting testing from a
> year-old tarball.  Some others might test in kexec/vmware/chroot or
> whatever.

Ehh, we'd never release ~arch tarballs.  If we were to do something like
this, it would be weekly stable tarballs.  There's no guarantee that
~arch is even consistent.  With stable, there's at least the testing of
the arch teams.

> > why exactly do PPC boxes need the newest everything?
> 
> Sigh.  I'd rather not go there.  Suffice to say ~arch is why we're here.
>  The current ~arch is turning into 2008.0 anyway, so that's what where
> we can help QA Gentoo.

No, it isn't.

I think your idea of how Gentoo releases work is a bit skewed.
Everything comes from stable.  Always.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Games Developer

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[gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[davecode]

> we'd never release ~arch tarballs

I'm talking testing, you're thinking stable...

Testers by definition do not want old stuff.  The reason they are
testing is they want new stuff.  Yes, they understand the risk.  In
Debian they use "unstable" and "experimental" branches.

Some big distros even vector off "unstable," such as Ubunutu.  So I am
not alone in this...

The rolling stage3 suggestion isn't that Gentoo checks everything.  The
servers just spit them out.  The idea is that Gentoo give testers more
recent ~stage3's than year-old tarballs which are not even marked ~arch.
 No SVN/CVS etc.  Our explicit interest is testing - not stable
releases!  Even when you ship 2008.0 we'll be on ~arch.

Having just gone through days of testing with 2007.0, and upgrading to
~ppc, I'm just trying to offer some constructive feedback.  Linux
projects want testers and developers, in general.  The way to attract
testers is lowering barriers to entry.


> I think your idea of how Gentoo releases work is a bit skewed.
> Everything comes from stable.  Always.

I'm not clear how I said otherwise?  Well, okay, straighten me out ...
My understanding is

* Gentoo has two parallel ongoing branches, arch and ~arch
* ~arch has more recent packages than arch but less stability
* both branches keep upgrading over time with bug/security/feature fixes
* the only stage3 tarballs that exist are for the previous mega public
release
* Gentoo releng team plants a pole in the ground and ~arch becomes arch
"beta"
* arch "beta" quickly turns into arch-stable, while a new ~arch forks
ahead

Corrections welcome...Anyway, rolling testing tarballs for ~arch was the
idea.

Rolling tarballs for both arch and ~arch together is no more work than
one or the other.  It would be the same automated stuff.

Thanks for a wonderful distro and the work on 2008.0.
-- 
  
  davecode@nospammail.net

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[gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Christian Faulhammer]

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Hi,

davecode-Nbr/4NovP0l9pMjJd8zWoA@public.gmane.org:
> > we'd never release ~arch tarballs
> I'm talking testing, you're thinking stable...
> Testers by definition do not want old stuff.  The reason they are
> testing is they want new stuff.  Yes, they understand the risk.  In
> Debian they use "unstable" and "experimental" branches.

 We have to think of people that install the first time or rely on
having a stable system, they need arch as it is tested.  A fixed and
tested status has the pro of having less problems for Newbies.
 
> > I think your idea of how Gentoo releases work is a bit skewed.
> > Everything comes from stable.  Always.
> I'm not clear how I said otherwise?  Well, okay, straighten me out ...
> My understanding is
> * Gentoo has two parallel ongoing branches, arch and ~arch

 Correct.

> * ~arch has more recent packages than arch but less stability

 Correct.

> * both branches keep upgrading over time with bug/security/feature
> fixes

 Correct.  This is done by teams per architecture, have a look at
<URL:http://devmanual.gentoo.org/keywording/index.html>.

> * the only stage3 tarballs that exist are for the previous mega public
> release

 Correct.

> * Gentoo releng team plants a pole in the ground and ~arch becomes
> arch "beta"

 No. There is a snapshot taken which contains the packages stable at
the moment of shooting.

> * arch "beta" quickly turns into arch-stable, while a new ~arch forks
> ahead

 We don't have an immediate switch, the parts of the tree move
constantly and at different speeds.
 
> Rolling tarballs for both arch and ~arch together is no more work than
> one or the other.  It would be the same automated stuff.

 Problems that occur one day might blow support...so those automated
stages need to be unsupported and we would win nothing out of it.

V-Li

-- 
Christian Faulhammer, Gentoo Lisp project
<URL:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/lisp/>, #gentoo-lisp on FreeNode

<URL:http://www.faulhammer.org/>

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Rémi Cardona]

davecode@nospammail.net a écrit :
> I'm not clear how I said otherwise?  Well, okay, straighten me out ...
> My understanding is
> 
> * Gentoo has two parallel ongoing branches, arch and ~arch
> * ~arch has more recent packages than arch but less stability
> * both branches keep upgrading over time with bug/security/feature fixes
> * the only stage3 tarballs that exist are for the previous mega public
> release
> * Gentoo releng team plants a pole in the ground and ~arch becomes arch
> "beta"

Nope, this is not how it happens. The stabling process happens all year 
long, even when releases are not being prepared.

In fact, very little changes when releases are being, as Chris and 
Andrew said, the stable release is a snapshot of the stable tree at a 
given moment in time. Nothing else. arch doesn't change, ~arch doesn't 
change either.

Rémi
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Markus Hauschild]

If you really want to test ~arch packets you don't necessarily need
~arch stages to download, you can just switch your Installation to
~arch and then file bugs etc.
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Alex Howells]

On 03/02/2008, Markus Hauschild <hauschild.markus@googlemail.com> wrote:
> If you really want to test ~arch packets you don't necessarily need
> ~arch stages to download, you can just switch your Installation to
> ~arch and then file bugs etc.

.. which may not be received too well. There is a perception that
Developers *support* ~arch, which is a skewed outlook; it's there for
testing, it is *not* meant to be used by 99.5% of end users.  It is a
means to an end, a way to track packages which *may* be stable, a QA
process.

ie:  The following would/should be entirely acceptable:

<User>  I'm running ~arch of libfoo and it's breaking appwoo, help!
        Need this to work, really *REALLY* badly!

<Dev>   We're aware of those issues, but libfoo works fine for most
        of the other apps which require it.  No ETA on the fix,
        tough sh*t for running ~arch on a critical box.

<User>  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

If you're interested in helping that QA process, most of the
architecture teams now have an 'Arch Tester' (AT) setup you could help
out with...
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Alex Howells wrote:
> On 03/02/2008, Markus Hauschild <hauschild.markus@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> If you really want to test ~arch packets you don't necessarily need
>> ~arch stages to download, you can just switch your Installation to
>> ~arch and then file bugs etc.
> 
> .. which may not be received too well. There is a perception that
> Developers *support* ~arch, which is a skewed outlook; it's there for
> testing, it is *not* meant to be used by 99.5% of end users.  It is a
> means to an end, a way to track packages which *may* be stable, a QA
> process.
> 
> ie:  The following would/should be entirely acceptable:
> 
> <User>  I'm running ~arch of libfoo and it's breaking appwoo, help!
>         Need this to work, really *REALLY* badly!
> 
> <Dev>   We're aware of those issues, but libfoo works fine for most
>         of the other apps which require it.  No ETA on the fix,
>         tough sh*t for running ~arch on a critical box.
> 
> <User>  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
> 
> If you're interested in helping that QA process, most of the
> architecture teams now have an 'Arch Tester' (AT) setup you could help
> out with...

Well ... I've been running ~x86 and ~amd64 for a long time and I can't 
remember an instance where I needed to drop back to stable for the 
things I regularly use, such as R, maxima, Ruby, Lyx, and I can't 
remember a time when I needed to drop back to stable for a core 
component like the kernel, gcc, perl, or python either. But -- that's 
x86 and amd64 -- it might be much riskier on something less common, like 
powerpc.

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Alex Howells]

> > .. which may not be received too well. There is a perception that
> > Developers *support* ~arch, which is a skewed outlook; it's there for
> > testing, it is *not* meant to be used by 99.5% of end users.  It is a
> > means to an end, a way to track packages which *may* be stable, a QA
> > process.
> >
> > ie:  The following would/should be entirely acceptable:
> >
> > <User>  I'm running ~arch of libfoo and it's breaking appwoo, help!
> >         Need this to work, really *REALLY* badly!
> >
> > <Dev>   We're aware of those issues, but libfoo works fine for most
> >         of the other apps which require it.  No ETA on the fix,
> >         tough sh*t for running ~arch on a critical box.
> >
> > <User>  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
> >
> > If you're interested in helping that QA process, most of the
> > architecture teams now have an 'Arch Tester' (AT) setup you could help
> > out with...
>
> Well ... I've been running ~x86 and ~amd64 for a long time and I can't
> remember an instance where I needed to drop back to stable for the
> things I regularly use, such as R, maxima, Ruby, Lyx, and I can't
> remember a time when I needed to drop back to stable for a core
> component like the kernel, gcc, perl, or python either. But -- that's
> x86 and amd64 -- it might be much riskier on something less common, like
> powerpc.

I wasn't attempting to state "This does not work!"; merely expressing
that ~arch isn't really a supported platform. Dropping back to stable
isn't really a viable route, once your system is ~arch there's quite a
lot to go <BOOM!> if you tried to globally undo that.  Wanna try it?
;)

At the moment Gentoo Linux has a reputation as a "ricer" distribution,
and a large proportion of users on ~arch does nothing to solve that...
Speaking entirely frankly I'd love to see increased adoption in
enterprise, there's a whole lot this distribution has to offer to
server farms, for example.

Look at it this way:  by running ~arch whilst *not* a Developer or
Arch Tester you're having a very limited impact, or possibly a
negative one. Getting onto the 'track' of contributing to the project
through the various 'Arch Tester' teams is a great way for a "Power
User" to help out; should you feel you're more technically inclined,
can write a useful language or three / hack ebuilds as naturally as
breathing, I know we need Developers!  Especially in understaffed
areas like Release Engineering. :)

I'd have liked to see two main things happen with Gentoo 2008.0:

   *  Get rid of stage3 - all our install documentation works with
      just the stage3 right now, we don't "support" stage1/2
      installs yet users are /always/ asking on IRC and MLs
      for help with a stage1 install because they think it's l33t.
      Remove it from mirrors, put it in /experimental, whatever;
      we need the stage1/2 somewhere for lotsa reasons, but lets
      make it less obvious to weed out those clueless ricers.

  (the next one is more of a Portage change)
   *  Have some warning banners on ~arch and a toggle option for
      make.conf to disable them.  There are *far* too many people
      on IRC suggesting newbies adopt ~arch, and they do so.. :(
      They've got no clue what it means, then they bitch/whine
      when they hit ABI issues or other problems and blame Gentoo.
      Don't document the toggle option in the Install Manual ;)

   Suggested value for disabling the big flashy warning banners :P
   MODIFYING_ACCEPT_KEYWORDS_MAY_BREAK_MY_BOX_AND_I_UNDERSTAND_THIS
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Alex Howells wrote:
> I wasn't attempting to state "This does not work!"; merely expressing
> that ~arch isn't really a supported platform. Dropping back to stable
> isn't really a viable route, once your system is ~arch there's quite a
> lot to go <BOOM!> if you tried to globally undo that.  Wanna try it?
> ;)

I've never had to, but yes, it's nearly impossible.

> At the moment Gentoo Linux has a reputation as a "ricer" distribution,
> and a large proportion of users on ~arch does nothing to solve that...
> Speaking entirely frankly I'd love to see increased adoption in
> enterprise, there's a whole lot this distribution has to offer to
> server farms, for example.

Well, there's nothing wrong with being a ricer. :) At the very least, 
even if you stay with "stable", you can still compile "-O2 -march=" on 
Gentoo. Most of the other distros saddle you with i386, and I have no 
clue what optimization, if any, they do.

Gentoo in the enterprise? Nobody ever got fired for buying RHEL or 
Novell SuSE. It's possible Ubuntu will get to that point someday, but 
you aren't going to see a "pure community" distro like Gentoo, Debian, 
or even Fedora any place where there's even a whiff of risk aversion. 
Enterprise IT departments want to be able to call up a sales rep and 
threaten to quit buying if the vendor doesn't come in and fix stuff *now*!

> Look at it this way:  by running ~arch whilst *not* a Developer or
> Arch Tester you're having a very limited impact, or possibly a
> negative one. Getting onto the 'track' of contributing to the project
> through the various 'Arch Tester' teams is a great way for a "Power
> User" to help out; should you feel you're more technically inclined,
> can write a useful language or three / hack ebuilds as naturally as
> breathing, I know we need Developers!  Especially in understaffed
> areas like Release Engineering. :)

Well, I put in a fair amount of free time with various open source 
projects. I basically test stuff that I use, like R, Axiom, Common 
Music, LyX and the Ruby language and its gems. And I'm also a student of 
the innards of the Linux kernel. If I had any time left over from that 
and my day job, I'd probably do something like make ebuilds for a few 
packages I like that aren't in Portage, for example, the PRISM model 
checker, CSound (which is a real challenge, by the way) or SMCSolver.

> I'd have liked to see two main things happen with Gentoo 2008.0:
> 
>    *  Get rid of stage3 - all our install documentation works with
>       just the stage3 right now, we don't "support" stage1/2
>       installs yet users are /always/ asking on IRC and MLs
>       for help with a stage1 install because they think it's l33t.
>       Remove it from mirrors, put it in /experimental, whatever;
>       we need the stage1/2 somewhere for lotsa reasons, but lets
>       make it less obvious to weed out those clueless ricers.

Did you mean to say "get rid of stage3" or "get rid of stage1 and 
stage2?" Is there a way to do an install without stage3?

> 
>   (the next one is more of a Portage change)
>    *  Have some warning banners on ~arch and a toggle option for
>       make.conf to disable them.  There are *far* too many people
>       on IRC suggesting newbies adopt ~arch, and they do so.. :(
>       They've got no clue what it means, then they bitch/whine
>       when they hit ABI issues or other problems and blame Gentoo.
>       Don't document the toggle option in the Install Manual ;)

Well, I'm certainly in favor of disabling it on the LiveCD/DVD 
installer! While you're at it, force everyone to take i686 and -O2 along 
with not getting ~arch on the installer. In other words, force them to 
what they'd get if they installed networkless. Hell, you might as well 
force them to take ext3 filesystems, since they're the only ones that 
really work. ;)

Those few times I've installed a new box from the LiveCD/DVD, I've 
always done it networkless anyhow. That way, I get the box on the air in 
a short time and *then* I can indulge my inner ricer. :)

>    Suggested value for disabling the big flashy warning banners :P
>    MODIFYING_ACCEPT_KEYWORDS_MAY_BREAK_MY_BOX_AND_I_UNDERSTAND_THIS

Yep ... fine with me.


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Re: [gentoo-releng] Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[keith]

just do emerge --nodeps bash && emerge --nodeps portage. Because I get
it also

On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 20:31 -0800, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> Hi Gentoo-
> 
> My overall impression of Gentoo is "what a fantastic system"!  I can't
> believe how good, really.  These are all fairly minor things.  I'm new
> to Gentoo, so forgive dumb ignorance, but Linux and programming are my
> profession.
> 
> For your 2008.0 release:
> 
> The 2007.0~ppc branch fails to upgrade over a Bash / Portage block.  So
> will 2008.0 break too, until attended?  A Bash / Portage conflict is the
> worst possible.
> 
> I tried to fix it (from zsh chroot into Gentoo) but gave up.  Stock
> advice on FAQs does not work in this thorny case.  Forums show
> occasional situations between Python / Portage, too.
> 
> I do not want/ask your help, but only to share a thought:
> 
> Portage should have embedded Python and embedded Bash.  Exactly the
> versions it needs, with bare minimum required libraries, statically
> compiled.
> 
> The Portage 'snapshot' is already a special install step.  And Gentoo
> already ships regular snapshots.  The only thing missing is embedding
> the dependencies directly.
> 
> I've never embedded Bash, but have Python, several times.  Bash could
> probably work too.  The combined ELFs weigh around 2 MB total, not bad
> for a critical executive controller like Portage which has its own
> dedicated snapshots.
> 
> Finally - how about some recent stage3 ~arch tarballs.  I can't find
> any.  Most distros do daily/weekly/monthly build snapshots.  The only
> snapshots for Gentoo seem to be Portage snapshots.  Am I wrong?  I know
> the 2008.0 beta is due soon, but I mean on a continuous basis.  Not
> binary builds, just the latest ~arch tarball.  If not frequent, at least
> quarterly?
> 
> Normal ppc 2007.0 works fine from a dependency standpoint.  The entire
> reason for trying Gentoo is that ppc boxes need the absolute most
> bleeding edge of everything.  Hence the interest in Gentoo and
> specifically ~arch.  We also want the latest GNOME anyhow, plus
> compiz-fusion.
> 
> Would it be best to wait a month until beta, or is it reasonable to
> install ~arch right now?  A few bugzilla contributions from us might
> help the beta project but deadly bash/Portage conflicts are a little too
> thick for my taste right now...
> 
> Thank you!
> -- 
>   
>   davecode@nospammail.net
> 
> -- 
> http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service
> 

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Alex Howells]

On 04/02/2008, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> Alex Howells wrote:
> > I wasn't attempting to state "This does not work!"; merely expressing
> > that ~arch isn't really a supported platform. Dropping back to stable
> > isn't really a viable route, once your system is ~arch there's quite a
> > lot to go <BOOM!> if you tried to globally undo that.  Wanna try it?
> > ;)
>
> I've never had to, but yes, it's nearly impossible.

.. and this is why I think there should be big warning signs :)

> Gentoo in the enterprise? Nobody ever got fired for buying RHEL or
> Novell SuSE. It's possible Ubuntu will get to that point someday, but
> you aren't going to see a "pure community" distro like Gentoo, Debian,
> or even Fedora any place where there's even a whiff of risk aversion.
> Enterprise IT departments want to be able to call up a sales rep and
> threaten to quit buying if the vendor doesn't come in and fix stuff *now*!

I actually know of several server farms and supercomputers which run
it right now, and I know plenty of universities with 1000+ systems
deployed too; my alma mater uses very basic installs of Gentoo Linux
for X11 to connect to Citrix, it works very well, is easy to update en
masse, etc. They've got a mixture of Solaris 10 and Gentoo deployed on
servers too.

Maybe I'm being incorrect when classing 'enterprise' as start-ups, but
I wasn't excluding them from my previous statement - what I'd like is
increased adoption in business generally, we already see some shops
running Gentoo Linux because they've realized their "in house" guys
are just as good as the some of the chaps on RHELs support line. ;)

> > I'd have liked to see two main things happen with Gentoo 2008.0:
> >
> >    *  Get rid of stage3 - all our install documentation works with
> >       just the stage3 right now, we don't "support" stage1/2
> >       installs yet users are /always/ asking on IRC and MLs
> >       for help with a stage1 install because they think it's l33t.
> >       Remove it from mirrors, put it in /experimental, whatever;
> >       we need the stage1/2 somewhere for lotsa reasons, but lets
> >       make it less obvious to weed out those clueless ricers.
>
> Did you mean to say "get rid of stage3" or "get rid of stage1 and
> stage2?" Is there a way to do an install without stage3?

I meant stop shipping stage1 and stage2 in the releases directory.
Already it's not mentioned in documentation, but it's presence in the
place we tell folks to download stuff from makes people go, "I wanna
do that! l33t!".

There are only a few corner cases where you *should* install from
stage1, notably if you want to significantly alter the bootstrap
process.  Given how stage3 gets 'out of date' pretty fast after a
release due to us having a fairly dynamic tree though, if you wanted
to make core changes, it's going to be just as fast (and 10x more
supported) to emerge -e world.

That leaves:

    *  Ship 'em in /experimental to all our mirrors
    *  Keep 'em on one of our Infra boxes at $sponsor

Don't think there's much between those choices, given stage1+2
shouldn't really need to be downloaded a great deal. In terms of
traffic volume, the biggest 'hit' seems to be folks downloading
LiveCDs + stage3.

> >    *  Have some warning banners on ~arch and a toggle option for
> >       make.conf to disable them.  There are *far* too many people
> >       on IRC suggesting newbies adopt ~arch, and they do so.. :(
> >       They've got no clue what it means, then they bitch/whine
> >       when they hit ABI issues or other problems and blame Gentoo.
> >       Don't document the toggle option in the Install Manual ;)
[snip..]
> >    Suggested value for disabling the big flashy warning banners :P
> >    MODIFYING_ACCEPT_KEYWORDS_MAY_BREAK_MY_BOX_AND_I_UNDERSTAND_THIS
>
> Yep ... fine with me.

I'm not suggesting we remove flexibility here, just make it *very*
obvious when you might be doing something daft.  If power users want
to run ~arch with XFS on a desktop system that doesn't have a UPS,
they're stupid, but we shouldn't restrain them from doing that :)
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 20:28 -0800, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Those few times I've installed a new box from the LiveCD/DVD, I've 
> always done it networkless anyhow. That way, I get the box on the air
> in a short time and *then* I can indulge my inner ricer. :)

Actually, we've done one better and made it networkless-only now.  It
only does a binary install.  If you want to do a networked install, you
have to do it manually.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Games Developer
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 20:28 -0800, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>> Those few times I've installed a new box from the LiveCD/DVD, I've 
>> always done it networkless anyhow. That way, I get the box on the air
>> in a short time and *then* I can indulge my inner ricer. :)
> 
> Actually, we've done one better and made it networkless-only now.  It
> only does a binary install.  If you want to do a networked install, you
> have to do it manually.
> 

That's great!! I could never get a networked install to work -- 
something about the LiveCD/LiveDVD being dog-slow doing compiles, I 
think. That was on a machine with only 1 GB of RAM, though -- it might 
actually work on my big one.
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[gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[davecode]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.

> Markus Hauschild:
> If you really want to test ~arch packets you don't necessarily need
> ~arch stages to download, you can just switch your Installation to
> ~arch and then file bugs etc.

That's what we did, and what generated the ~tarball suggestion.

> Alex Howells:
> Look at it this way:  by running ~arch whilst *not* a Developer or
> Arch Tester you're having a very limited impact, or possibly a
> negative one. Getting onto the 'track' of contributing to the project

Contributing...I just tried a couple of suggestions?  They seem good to
me.

It isn't preference or 133t-ness.  There are technical issues with the
user machines and desktop lust.

I'm not saying "change your ways" but rather "tarball ~stuff" to help
sysadmins make their own design choices.  Any choice is a balancing act
of competing requirements.

> They've got no clue what it means, then they bitch/whine
> when they hit ABI issues or other problems and blame Gentoo.

Not in this discussion?  All I want is a cleaner way to install ~arch. 
Put all the warning stickers you want.  I agree it is *not* for average
users.

Many feel Debian unstable is the more stable branch, because it swallows
upstream bugfixes.  Debatable; can depend on the system spec.  Debian
focuses too much on servers -- it ought to fork a desktop branch, if you
ask me.  Some Debian distros have done just that.  Anyway the point is,
there can be legit reasons to run unstable; reasonable people can
differ.

There is lag between upstream package releases and distro adoption. 
Typical scene:  an upstream package advertises "now more stable!" but
the distro takes a year or two rolling it in.  Worse scene: upstream
package advertises "now supports your hardware!" but again, the distro
takes 1-2 years.

So the dilemma:  which branch is really the more "stable"?  The one that
the distro calls stable, or the one with all the latest from upstream? 
There is no one answer of course.  Obviously a release engineering
statement on the matter is going to be different from another viewpoint.

I follow release engineering's worries about user install procedures,
and that's legit.  But I am a sysadmin, unafraid of reasonable breakage
that I can fix.  I would not recommend average people install ~arch any
more than you would.  All I'm saying is ~tarballs would be nice for
experts.

My job reviews aren't based on making Gentoo penetrate this or that
market sector but making computers work.  I don't have the luxury of
explaining to folks that "the distro will take care of it in 1-2 years"
or endlessly fiddling with custom package selections ("apt-pinning" in
Debian).  Users want me out of their cubes, fast.

> run ~arch with XFS on a desktop system that doesn't have a UPS

Guilty as charged.  Running Debian unstable on XFS for years, through
dozens of storm blackouts, and zero data loss.  Ext3 lost plenty of data
before we gave up on it.  Have no intention of using ext4, either.

We should have UPSes, if only the bean counters would stop retorting
that we've never lost data, so why do we need 'em...ha.

(Good fstab tips:  barrier, noatime, nodiratime...and /tmp and /var/log
in tmpfs...)

The consensus here is that we'll wait for beta release and install that
with ~arch keyword.  Lookin' forward to it.
-- 
  
  davecode@nospammail.net

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - One of many happy users:
  http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/quotes.html

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
>> run ~arch with XFS on a desktop system that doesn't have a UPS
> 
> Guilty as charged.  Running Debian unstable on XFS for years, through
> dozens of storm blackouts, and zero data loss.  Ext3 lost plenty of data
> before we gave up on it.  Have no intention of using ext4, either.

Ah ... I've been running (Gentoo) reiser3 on my workstation here. I 
never thought to try XFS or JFS, but I too have given up on ext3 (ecause 
it's slow). reiser3 can be slow on writing, though.
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Dale]

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
>>> run ~arch with XFS on a desktop system that doesn't have a UPS
>>
>> Guilty as charged.  Running Debian unstable on XFS for years, through
>> dozens of storm blackouts, and zero data loss.  Ext3 lost plenty of data
>> before we gave up on it.  Have no intention of using ext4, either.
>
> Ah ... I've been running (Gentoo) reiser3 on my workstation here. I
> never thought to try XFS or JFS, but I too have given up on ext3
> (ecause it's slow). reiser3 can be slow on writing, though.

If you plan to use XFS, make sure your UPS is working.  In my
experience, it does not like power failures at all.  Maybe things have
changed since tho.

Dale

:-)  :-)
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Alex Howells]

On 05/02/2008, Dale <dalek1967@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> If you plan to use XFS, make sure your UPS is working.  In my
> experience, it does not like power failures at all.  Maybe things have
> changed since tho.
>

It uses very aggressive caching to get decent speed. Take a decent
database box with 32GB RAM, assume MySQL is underworked at the moment
and using 11GB then your power quits on ya.... chances are you just
lost 21GB of your "most used" data which would probably be most of
/var/lib/mysql ;)

Under no circumstances is XFS safe without a UPS.  It has not improved
in this regard and probably never will.  Anyone advising you to deploy
XFS in a production environment without UPS on 'critical' data is a
fool.

Just my two cents, of course, and lets get back on topic? :)
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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Dale]

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Alex Howells wrote:
> On 05/02/2008, Dale <dalek1967@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>   
>> If you plan to use XFS, make sure your UPS is working.  In my
>> experience, it does not like power failures at all.  Maybe things have
>> changed since tho.
>>
>>     
>
> It uses very aggressive caching to get decent speed. Take a decent
> database box with 32GB RAM, assume MySQL is underworked at the moment
> and using 11GB then your power quits on ya.... chances are you just
> lost 21GB of your "most used" data which would probably be most of
> /var/lib/mysql ;)
>
> Under no circumstances is XFS safe without a UPS.  It has not improved
> in this regard and probably never will.  Anyone advising you to deploy
> XFS in a production environment without UPS on 'critical' data is a
> fool.
>
> Just my two cents, of course, and lets get back on topic? :)
>   

That was my point.  I lost a install once because of XFS and a power
failure.  It would not even think of booting again.  I'm on reiserfs
here and so far, so good.  I guess all file systems have some good
points and some bad points.  Just got to know them before you choose the
wrong one.  :/

On point tho, is the last available "official" stage3 tarball the same
as the one on the 2007 CD?

Dale

:-)  :-)

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Re: [gentoo-releng] Re: Free-standing Portage / Recent stage3 tarballs / Beta

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 23:35 -0800, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> I'm not saying "change your ways" but rather "tarball ~stuff" to help
> sysadmins make their own design choices.  Any choice is a balancing
> act of competing requirements.
> 
> > They've got no clue what it means, then they bitch/whine
> > when they hit ABI issues or other problems and blame Gentoo.
> 
> Not in this discussion?  All I want is a cleaner way to install
> ~arch. 
> Put all the warning stickers you want.  I agree it is *not* for
> average users.

You must be new here.  If we allow it, it'll be used.  Not only will it
be used, but the users will expect us to support it.  We are already
understaffed to support simple things like the stages and the minimal
images.  Adding yet another set of stages that could much more easily be
broken due to lower QA just isn't something we have the ability to do,
even if we wanted to do it.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Games Developer

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